


The Things You Took Away and Left Behind

by Senalia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alpha Harry, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Banter, Domestic, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, M/M, Omega Draco Malfoy, Protective Harry, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-06 14:59:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11603031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senalia/pseuds/Senalia
Summary: Harry had been to many, many places, but never did he find anything worth coming back for. Then when boyfriend of Malfoy, new friends of Malfoy, son of Malfoy, and Malfoy himself found him, Harry wanted them to stay.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My Spanish skill is equivalent to none, so I apologize dearly if Google translate and I mess up every Spanish line in the story. Please tell me how to fix them! And my English is at the level where it desperately needs a beta, any angel that is willing to come to its rescue will be very appreciated. 
> 
> Mi niña hermosa - My beautiful girl  
> Amor mío - My love  
> Estoy por aquí! Ven aquí!’ - I'm here! Come here!  
> Mi señorito - My lord  
> Mi querido - My dear  
> Adiós, mi querido amigo - Goodbye, my dear friend

Harry Potter woke up to the joyful chirping of a family of sparrows, and had he not a troubled sleep from jet lag and a banging headache from firewhiskey, he would’ve shown more appreciation to the mother nature's morning call. But now it sounded quite like dear old Walburga Black screeching in constant intervals right outside of his window. He stealthily opened one of his bottled-green eyes, and immediately closed it. At least this place had very assaulting sunlight, Harry mused. He tried to convince himself that meeting the warm sun would be therapeutic for his poor broken heart, and grimaced as he forced his eyes to open at once.

He really didn’t want to think about Ginny first thing in the bloody morning, but his arsehole of a mind ignored him and thought about her first thing in the bloody morning anyway. The only remnants of memories Harry could miserably recover from last night were: him running late to Ginny’s birthday party with a full bottle of Ogden’s Finest Firewhiskey, him watching a sensual snogging section of Ginny and Luna, and him running away from Ginny’s birthday party with an almost empty bottle of Ogden’s Finest Firewhiskey. Appeared one of the windows of the Grimmauld Place, he remembered, and then there was the door of his small office at the Ministry. Next thing he knew, he woke up here, wherever it was. Praying from the bottom of his pounding head for there would be some Hangover Potion lying around, Harry searched for his glasses, which was lost under a pile of pillows, and took in his surrounding. On the walls, whose colour was a muted beige, were a big, square window, two paintings - one was Muggle, a tipi tent on which some black and white stallions were sketched; the other magical, judging by the merry movements of a Métis cultural dance, and a simple wooden jacket hanger - with the eighth hook hung a tag that said ‘Dirty garments on me. I do Laundry!’. Far on a night stand were an old lamp and a remote control, which Harry guessed was for the big boxed telly standing imposingly in front of his bed. On the carpeted floor there scattered his valise, socks, shirt, jeans, and pants. He must have performed some sort of strip tease by himself in the drunken state last night.

That was quite depressing.

At least he can stuff his face with something equivalent to treacle tart or oily food for breakfast later. Effortless maintenance of the ‘Gleaming, God-liked body of a Golden hero’ - quote on quote from the Witch Weekly - was all thank for his much convenient biological secondary gender. He liked this part a whole lot.

Then the image of the once slim and pretty Ginny, who was now also sporting a good amount of heavy muscles, popped up and ruined everything. Grudgingly, he shoved all the earlier sex appeals and daydreams aside.

With the toll of war had fallen upon the British wizarding world and thousand of families, the magical population unsurprisingly dropped to a lower than acceptable level. Alarmed, the Ministry hastily decided to develop a spell that would re-activate the ancient secondary gender of all British magical civilians, in order to preserve the numbers. The Alpha/Omega/Beta system was rebuilt, and from it arose many more issues than ever, mostly because of the censurable, old-fashioned laws were written without any wee bit concern for the fundamental of humanity. Hermione Granger, who had turned omega, was appalled by the dubious Protection Act for the Minorities of Genders, or lack thereof, and advocated a petition for a reformation of the justice system. She succeeded with the support of Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley (both were presented as alpha, but never would they dare to treat a very-determined-Hermione with flippant condescendence after S.P.E.W, for they had learnt to just shut up and support whatever she invented) and surprisingly from many families of former Death Eaters that were excused from Azkaban. When Ron sneered at the scum of Death Eaters that were now his fiance’s enthusiastic reformers, Hermione had said that was “a very typical example of elites, or once were anyway, favouring a personal interest that overthrown even the blood purity’s thousand years old practice of condemning Muggleborns. You already know that their sort is prideful, short-sighted, and extremely self-preserving, but I happened to promote what they want, plus the common welfare. The only people who would sneer at my face are the only ones that would have to read my bills, or horny and mean alphas - don't make that face, it's true. That’s why I won and was loved, Ronald.”

Ron only said that he would stop giving her foot rubs if she ever ran for the Minister, or became a chummy mate with the Slytherins.

But there was a low rumour going about: the accused Death Eaters and Voldemort sympathizers were all handled by an alternative version of the spell, which forced to turn whatever their original secondary genders were to default omegas as a punishment. Hermione had been complaining during the Death Eater’s trials period that doing so would only exacerbate omegas’ vulnerable reputation. And Ron, who was still on the rush of pride of turning an alpha, had swept her off her feet in the middle of the Ministry hallway, and vowed to protect her with such fervent love and protective air that he made Harry gagging miserably in a corner. Harry was temporarily allergic to the sappiness of happiness.

It really wasn’t Ron and Hermione’s fault that Harry had lost his (supposedly) bonded mate, as Ginny, by some evil deity, had presented as an alpha; however, it was completely their fault that they were on border being exhibitionists in front of him, every single bloody time he was with them. If his own presence had done a splendid job turning them on, Harry took no pleasure to that accomplishment.

Harry was neither very attracted to Ginny - mind, she was a beautiful alpha, but Harry preferred soft laps to sleep on, thanks - nor he wanted her to be anymore than an intimate friend. He was quite sure that Ginny had felt the same. They provided each other a comfort of having a companion, and so their relationship fluctuated for three whole years, depending on whichever one of them was lonely. It was unfair for him that she left when he had needed her, but it was only fair for her to find what she needed. Harry tried to understand, and really hoped that Ginny had found it in Luna, quite upset though he was. Maybe he should try to go on serious dates under glamours and Polyjuice, but it would be hardly serious if he had used the disguise in the first place. Or maybe Harry would remain lonely, and very moody whenever Ron grinned grotesquely at Hermione, for a little longer.

Deciding that he must remove himself from this self-hosted pity party at once, he shuffled gracelessly out of bed. In spite of how frequent the Witch Weekly had glorified Harry Potter’s assertive, dangerous saunter in many of its articles, from which Ginny used to read aloud during every Sunday dinner at the Burrow, Harry still found the extra weight of muscles made him seem rather clumsier.

He knew that he was recycling his thoughts only about Ginny, Witch Weekly, and muscles, but he really couldn’t help it. Anyone who had received three mental slaps of those topics to the spirit in one day could tell him otherwise. But Harry really wasn’t in the mood to brood about Molly’s motherly letter reminding him about the upcoming date with Ginny (even though she knew about the on/off relationship and they were both Alphas for years now) among the daily pheromone scented fan mails; or about Witch Weekly’s howler screaming for a revelation about preferable mate references; or about Ginny’s strong, big hand sliding down to Luna’s...Merlin, he must stop.

Harry busied himself by digging through the content in his valise instead, and was pleased with his capability of packing all the essentials while being half-drunk. He wouldn’t need to go back home for a while, he thought happily.

A loud, resonant snap from the wizard’s fingers and the clothes marched through the air and folded themselves neatly in the awaiting drawers of the wooden cabinet. ‘Accio Pamphlet’ he absently said, and a blue leaf of printed papers slashed across the the room into his palm. _‘Olde Towne Okotoks’_ it read with colourful letters. Harry, again, was very pleased with his efficiency while he was pissed. He had traveled to the country of his next project successfully! How so he didn't really want to know. A small map and guides for boutiques were printed inside, and Harry squinted to search for the subtle hints of magic in a few pictures: there was a straw man tipping its hat in front of the Cozy Cottage, a running antiqued sewing machine behind the display window of the Rumpled Quilt Skins, and a grinder stealthily spinning its handle on the nameboard that read ‘Home Ground Coffee  & Roasting House’. The alpha wizard tried to memorize some of the stores for future souvenir shopping.

After a quick cold shower and a random selection of jeans and T-shirt, Harry started out of his room, through the brightly lit and narrow hallway he passed, and descended downstairs to a small lobby, following the smell of greasy breakfast which he had promised earlier to his grumpy hangover, into a vast dining area. He amiably chatted with a bubbly, plumped lady - had he not noticed the wiping cloth jumped back snugly into her apron pocket, he would’ve thought she was a Muggle - and placed his Classic Eggs Benny order with a discount on the extra sausages. A young waiter came and offered him a cup of herbal tea, which he refused and asked instead for black coffee.

“Sorry. I thought you’re English, so you take tea” the waiter blushed.

“No, it’s alright. I’ve been away from home too long to miss it” Harry smiled, and it was true. The only place he had visited and remembered himself enjoying the local tea was Darjeeling district of West Bengal state in India.

The waiter smiled back. “An Englishman that doesn’t miss his homeland. That’s weird.”

“A Canadian who isn’t being nice. That’s weirder.”

“More of a Canadian-Filipino. Watch your back, I’m not a pure nice Canadian. ” The waiter blew a full smirk. “Gino, nice to meet you.”

“I’m Harry” the wizard took the offered hand. “And I hope you’re nice enough for the constant coffee refill.”

Gino laughed, then turned to go fetch the coffee.

With a full stomach and a fat, plastic-wrapped Reuben sandwich saved for lunch in his travelling bottomless bag, Harry waved goodbye to Gino and the lady, and departed from the hotel to walk to the car rental place. Once there, he proudly presented his driver license, a great improvement from the attempt to drive the Flying Ford Anglia with Ron in second year, he thought back fondly.

Then Harry was driving at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour with a matte black pickup truck on a straight, smooth road, listening to some rock songs featured dynamic, long guitar solos along which his fingers on the wheels tapped, and passing through vast miles of green plains dotted with miniature horses and cows and endless domains of verdant pine trees. Until blue peaks that wore white, pristine crowns of snow all year long started to appear in the truck’s window and Harry felt that his legs were in need of a good stretch, he slowed down and stopped by a lake so clear it reflected an exact image of the structures above: a blue sky as soft as silk embroidered with skeins of delicate white clouds and solid, dark grey mass of the mountains. The alpha wizard escaped the claustration of the vehicles with his lunch to refill his belly, then let his back leant on the warm, black surface of the truck.

Overwhelmed by the giant works of nature before his eyes, Harry welcomed the familiar sense of humility and calmness washing over his mind. He felt relax and unchained, and let the great, tireless mountain before him shouldered its own cumbersome tons of rock. Just like when he always let the depthless ocean of the Pacific carried the load of its own water, and when he let the boundless rice field in Vietnam nurtured the lives of its own people. The little wizard, Harry Potter, just had to stood there and admired them. And because they didn’t need him, just like everyone else he left them and moved on, after devouring half of his sandwich, and never came back.

Harry passed by the welcome sign of Banff, heeding Gino’s guidance and driving the additional forty minutes to Lake Louise. The road got rockier and he was now following a line of cars that all seemed to head for the same destination. Soon Harry found himself parking the truck, and once again followed the throng of people that was accompanied by lively chatters. Even in June, there on the side of the walking path still sat big clumps of snow, on which children and teenagers climbed up and pretended that they had just conquered a very snowy mountain, and let their family and friends to take pictures of their momentary satisfaction.

Somehow he always ended up comparing every lake he see to the Great Lake at Hogwarts, and justified that it was rare for any lake to stretch on forever and to house a giant sodding squid and many stranger creatures at its bottom; yet, greeting him was the sight that immediately knocked the breath out of his lungs and the images of a gloomy lake in Scotland out of his head.

The gleaming water was a pure colour of turquoise, stippled only by small brown canoes and by the faint shadows of the grand, poised surrounding mountains, whose wide feet met the lake’s end and stood on a defined horizon line. Green fences of lushly trees enclosed the edge of lake, and were decorated with a warm looking, wood cottage on the left. The symmetrical imperfection of the lake, the trees, and the mountain was so picturesque that for a moment Harry couldn’t believe that he was looking at the _real_ thing, and not at some flat, bereft of novelty canvas of a painting. He breathed in a deep breath, then crept closer to the magical body of water and sat down on the rocky shore. He was taking pictures with his eyes, his mouth smiling.

However far lost he was in his mind, Harry Potter had never let the _constant vigilance_ fade away along with the scars from war. He picked up an approaching smell of a Muggle from the back, and waited patiently until he was tapped on the shoulders to turned around. And very taken aback he was. The bloke was almost as broad and strong framed as Harry, and had very beautiful, smooth depressions on tanned arms and calves. His eyes shone a jovial light shade of caramel, hidden far in his deep eye sockets and shaded by black, full brows, which traced down a Greek nose sitting mightily on an elongated face. Surrounded his chin and lips - a thin upper and a plump bottom - was a neatly trimmed five o'clock shadow, whose artful lines chiseled his cheekbones and otherwise square jaws. Droplets of water were racing down his damp, black mess of hair, dripping on wide shoulders that were clad under a bright orange life jacket. Even the orange - Chudley Cannon exact colour - couldn't ruin the stranger’s charm.

“Hey, would you up for canoeing?” the bloke spoke very fast with a heavy Spanish accent, his voice was a tenor tone. “My canoe needs one more person that weighed similar to me. You look about right.”

“Um, sure. Yes” sputtered Harry, intimidated by the short and quick word manipulation, a stark contrast to the languid stretches and drawls of British English.

“Great! Come, come! I’m Milos. You?”

“Harry.”

“Harry, nice to meet you” the wizard was so at awe with the notable, rumbling ‘r’ ring of his name on Milos’ tongue that he forgot to muse that whether or not all the Canadian Muggles were actually glad to meet him. “My boyfriend and his kid abandoned me here, and I’ve been looking for someone like you for while. Scrawny is like a trend nowadays!” A short walk around the shore later, Milos hitched his thumb at Harry and smiled triumphantly to a young, pretty brunette girl with very big hair that could easily compete with an afro, who seemed couldn’t help but exasperatingly returned the gesture. “I’ve been advising her to let me go alone, but this stubborn old girl just wouldn’t budge” he whispered loudly to Harry.

“Aw, you, shoo! Go already. Ya boy has been waving the paddle to me, like he was ahsking wheah the hell you went, and if theah's enough time for me to climb into his canoe” said the girl and Milos laughed.

“Isn’t my boy talented? Seducing you with only his paddling skill?”

“That’s why I’m so attracted. Once I have him, he’ll skillfully paddle you right out of mah way” the young girl smirked. “Now off you go”. She handed Harry and Milos each a long, wooden paddle, an orange life jacket to Harry, then explained half-arsedly a safety procedure and led them to their canoe.

“Thank you” Harry said politely, but the girl seemed to find that unacceptable because she threw her arms up in the air, and looked quite angry.

“I cannawt believe _you_ of all people can fish out anothah English dude! Where the hell do yuh find them?” she glared vehemently at a guffawing Milos.

“I pick him out specially for you, _mi niña hermosa_. Preventing a poor parody of the 1898 war if you ever actually plan to jump my boyfriend. Go on, Harry. Please! Flirt with her and you will purge the only misery of my life.”

Harry had never been so amused, so he wore his best posh accent that he had learnt from some Slytherins way back in his school days.

“Pardon my forward manners, but if you, a beautiful darling of youth and grace, are to be pair with me, I fear that you will feel utterly unsatisfied, for I am half a poof and surely often prefer men” the wizard smiled sheepishly and bowed. His face was as innocent as a babe, and his mouth hardly twitched when the brunette flushed pink, with her jaws dangled and her gaze fixated on Harry.

“Rosita, the flies are laying eggs in your mouth. And stop drooling. Dear God, you're embarrassing.” Milos was still laughing even when he was assaulted by a dozen of flying life jackets. He and Harry took the cue to jumped into the canoe, and speed paddling the fuck off.

“I’m Rosita!” The brunette shouted from the shore, waving her fingers that made into a phone shape “Call me! Wait! Can I have ya numbah anyway? Come back!…” but her voice was drowned out by the wheezing laughter of the two men. Harry hadn’t laugh this easily since Ron started being nosy with Harry and Ginny’s wobbling relationship. He was too busy being a responsible Alpha to joke around with his best mate anymore.

“Oh, God. Her face! Ha! Her face! Man, you’re good. Smooth as hell. Imma keep ya, Ro can go off with some high school kids for all I care” Milos declared between his breaths, then started laughing all over again. His deep, boisterous cackling was very infectious.

When they were finally slipping out of their mirth, Harry was all grinning brightly, and watching Milos’ handsome face mirrored his own. His caramel eyes and skin looked warm in the middle of the turquoise sea.

“Harry, you’re a romantic soul, but have no more grace than _amor mío_ \- my love, I meant.” Harry sighed, mocking disappointment and hopelessness towards what seem like a lovesick fool sitting in front of him, who was gloating on and on. “I tell you, he does its justice, the bow - a gentleman’s manner - he called it. Do it to me whenever we dance. Or to please me, he adds a kiss. Sly, eh? Flattered me preen like a damsel, even though he’s the prettier, though you don’t tell him that. He gets physically inflated.”

Someone was calling _‘Milos!’_ before Harry could laugh aloud, and the Latino immediately howled _‘Hola! Hola! Dreeeico, estoy por aquí! Ven aquí!’,_  signalling with waving arms. The foreign accent did wonder to obscure a familiar name, but Harry wasn’t listening. He was looking at two faraway white blond heads, and trying to discern a faint candied scent that seemed to gradually intensify as they approached Milos and Harry.

No one could ever imagine Harry Potter’s reaction when he discovered that one of the blond heads belonged to no other but the last person on Earth he wanted to see, because he couldn’t believe it. Just like when he couldn’t believe that Sirius was gone, or when Ginny was an Alpha, or when Draco Malfoy disappeared as soon as he was pardoned from Azkaban, before Harry could even give back his wand. And now the very Draco Malfoy was in front of him, clad in white shorts and pastel blue T-shirt and sandals, sitting a on bloody canoe and holding a bloody paddle, but Harry still couldn’t bloody believe it was him, until Malfoy opened his mouth.

“And who is this poor-fated victim that you’ve corrupted today, Milos?” he drawled, and Harry was momentarily glad for the perfect English accent, however pompous Malfoy made it sound.

“ _Eh, mi señorito_ , fear not. Harry is a fellow of your proud country, so I was very gentle with him.” Milos was smiling brightly and presenting Harry with a lazy hand.

“Shame that” cold, steely eyes flashed dangerously over Harry as if they were attempting to slash a raw line across his face. Then Malfoy smiled abruptly but so dazzlingly in a such sweet delight that he made the alpha’s green eyes widen in disbelief. “So pleased to meet you again, _Potter_. How wonderfully small the world is” he offered a hand to Harry.

Harry stared and stared at the hand that, in all its creamy white glory, seemed to promise a soft palm and delicate fingers, hovering above the cyan water. Only until it slightly faltered that Harry looked up to catch a fleeting, downward movement of Malfoy’s pink smiling mouth and quickly covered the hand with his own.

“Yes, er, Malfoy. Glad to see you too”. Malfoy really didn’t have to grip Harry’s hand like a bloody vise to send a threat. He was very capable to dig it out on his own from Malfoy’s plastic (otherwise still dazzling) smile, thanks. Harry huffed mentally and abruptly dropped Malfoy’s hand. However, he knew now from whom the sweet aroma came, and Harry bet it would linger on his own hand for a while.

“What? You guys know each other?” asked a very interested Milos. “Great! Harry you must tell me more about Dreico in England. He never tell me anything, probably because he was embarrassingly spoilt rotten.” Harry doubted Milos knew anything at all about Malfoy, considering that he was a Muggle, but still wholeheartedly approved the accuracy in his speculation.

“Scorpius, please say hello to Mr. Potter.” Malfoy ignored Milos’ comment and said to the little person sitting across him, whom Harry had just noticed until now.

The child looked up from the stirring activity that somewhat resembled brewing a potion in his own creative imagination. In his hand was a kid-sized paddle dipped lowly in the blue water. “Hallo, Mista Potta” he greeted with a blend of a melodious English drawl and a bold American pronunciation, but with a high-pitched young voice it was hard to decipher. Harry mostly just wanted to blame Malfoy for being a posh indoctrination around the child. “I’m Scorpius, but you already know that. I’m five years old. Mista Potta, I was telling father about a fact. Would you like to know about a fact? This one is very nice” the little blond asked eagerly in one whole breath with a bright face and big, big grey eyes. Mista Potta had a heart, so he said: “Sure, Scorpius”.

“Do you know that Lake Louise has many trout fishes - Cutthroat Trout, Bull Trout, Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout - and only one Mountain Whitefish? They live all year long, even when the lake was frozen. My teacher told me they live under the ice. How do they breathe under the ice, Mista Potter? How do they keep warm? Do you think the fairies give them gloves to keep warm before the water freezes?”

Harry smiled, clearly amused. “The fish would just need flop their way into our frying pans to keep warm, you know. They really don’t need the gloves” he said, and glanced at Malfoy expecting a scowl at the bad influence, but he only found Malfoy discreetly bit his lips, and his eyes were laughing. Well, at least the older Malfoy knew enough now to somewhat appreciate his childish humour.

“Mista Potta, I believe that fishing rods were invented for a reason” said a frowning five years old, and flushed shyly when the three men bursted out laughing. “I’m sorry. I was impolite.”

“No, kid. You’re clever.” Milos said and ruffled the little blond head. “Take after your dad, you do.” That seemed to cheered Scorpius up, but Harry’s spirit just dropped several feet down the bottom of his stomach. Merlin, Malfoy really had a kid. Harry had about a dozen of questions roaming in his head and he must get them sorted, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

The blond wizard was smiling proudly and smoothing back his son’s hair, when Harry, quite demandingly, announced: “Oi, Malfoy we need to catch up”.

Malfoy’s shoulders gave a subtle flinch. Harry didn’t miss it.

“Join us for late lunch then, Harry. We biked up here from Banff in the morning so I think we’re all pretty hungry” said Milos. “We can go back to Banff town for food. Have you been there?”

“No, but I was planning to get there after Lake Louise. Would you join me for a ride? I rented a truck, so your bikes wouldn’t be a problem.” said Harry, and Milos and Scorpius turned to Malfoy very quickly, both looking pretentiously pretty and distressed.

“Please, father. It’s very hot. I’ll get sunburn, and you’ll get sunburn, then you and me will complain till next week” and “Dreico, I’m tired, I’m starving. I’m hot. Love me, will you?” they chimed one after another. Harry found them very cute, but Malfoy - the heartless wanker - merely rolled his eyes before turning to Harry and asked, quite hesitantly.

“Are you sure, Potter? You will also have me in your car.”

Harry faked thinking for some seconds because he liked to watch Malfoy watching him in apprehension. “And why would I mind having you in my car?” asked Harry.

“Don’t kid yourself. He’s a bossy menace in the car” said Milos, who received a light shove to the head. Malfoy’s long fingers in black hair were quite captivating. The alluring scent around him wasn’t helping either.

“I’ve dealt with the very bossy menace for seven school years. No harm in a couple of minutes ride” Malfoy’s boyfriend raised an eyebrow.

“More to tell me about my mysterious bastard of a lover, I’m eager” Milos replied, but he was smirking at his bastard of a lover, and apparently Malfoy either ignored or dismissed the insult because he was smirking blatant, suggestive indecency right back.

Harry’s mood wasn’t that awful when Milos told _Dreico_ to take the front seat and navigate, no, it was definitely worse. Without the open air and the water evaporation, Malfoy’s saccharine scent was diffusing thickly all about the closed car by the cool breezes of the air conditioner, and was assaulting both Harry’s nostrils and zealous instinct. He needed to get out of the car, and get the fuck away from Malfoy. A little tumbling in the back from poor Scorpius (I’m okay!) and many modified obscenities (in both English and Spanish) from Milos still weren’t enough to stop Harry from driving like a psycho. It annoyed Harry to no end that Malfoy just sat there with his long crossed legs and good posture, giving out snappy directions, and looking very much unaffected during many of Harry’s impatient sharp turns. They drove through the road that was fenced with mountains and forests, and once Harry saw the board that said ‘Banff - National Park of Canada’, Malfoy turned on the radio with Harry’s unchanged rock channel and left it there, while Scorpius and Milos engaged in a very intense thumb wrestling at the back. The blond wizard seemed to decide that Harry wasn’t so hasty to get personal with the other passengers sitting right behind them, so he deemed the alpha’s presence negligible, and let himself relax. Harry wasn’t at all impressed when Malfoy drummed his long fingers and hummed the whole Bon Jovi’s guitar solo with ease, as if he had listened enough to Muggle rock n’ roll to know it by heart.

The main street of Banff town was full of cars, each moving infuriatingly slow forward. It was not a complete surprise to Harry, and maybe Malfoy was pretty smart riding bikes during the festive season after all. Densely packed with people, the sidewalks bore a small similarity to London though its convivial character was completely distinguished. Colourful shops, hotels, eateries, and pubs, all with various sizes and heights, were crowded with customers and browsers and tourists. Straight ahead was another titanic blue mountain, whose cool hue and stoic mood naturally neutralized the warm vibe of the town.

After a long struggle of competing for a parking spot, they joined the flow of people on the sun-bathed sidewalk. Harry tried to keep his distance as far as possible from Malfoy by pretending to stop and find fascination about life-sized, mounted bear and moose decorations that stood in front of shops, and listening to street music performances. He wanted to believe that his Auror training for subtleties was still intact.

It was quite odd to watch Malfoy held little Malfoy’s hand, strolling down the Muggle street and looking like they belonged there, in summer shorts and light T-shirt instead of long and severe robes, but Harry didn’t mind. Rather this than the stiff and unapproachable Malfoys, but then Malfoy went and bought Scorpius a Slytherin green balloon, so Harry told himself to stop watching them.

The lunch choice was resolved when Scorpius chirped happily and pointed a determined little finger at a ‘poutine’ advertisement. Malfoy smiled indulgently at his son, then said ‘no’.

Scorpius’ face was very much like Ron’s when Hermione had told him that they were having a sugar-free Christmas at the Granger's home, and so in the name of the people who knew how to pity, Harry had asked what a ‘poutine’ was. Milos gaped at him as if he was some kind of uncivilized caveman, who didn’t have a chance to be educated about the greatest invention in the universe or something, and Malfoy just glared at him. Apparently, Malfoy would rather not talk to Harry at all than to give him a piece of his mind.

Later, a paper box full of ‘poutine’ topped with a generous amount of salty bacon and spring onions was shoved to Harry, along with Milos’ dedicated reverence of its marvelous taste and suitability for hangovers. Malfoy rolled his eyes and quipped “It’s unhealthy, soggy chips drowned in gravy and cheese curds, but only without the accompanied fried fish, which, Milos, the English was clever enough to remember”. But he finished his own box very quickly and started to steal from Scorpius’ and Milos’, justifying that it was to compensate for the missing fish and that Scorpius shouldn't eat too much of greasy food. The scene of Malfoy nonchalantly poking his fork into the food carton of his Muggle boyfriend and son was so horribly uncomfortable, that Harry must shove it immediately to the back of his head to deal with it later.

They started to inspect the shops closer, mostly for the sake of Harry, who was the only one who weren’t a local, but Scorpius and Milos were excited anyway.

“No” said Malfoy with a smile when Milos brought over an antique rifle with a very hopeful expression. Harry now reckoned that Malfoy’s pretty smiles’ only usage was to sooth his meanness.  

“But babe, Zimmerstutzen rifles - I don’t know what it is but it sounds cool, and it has intricate carving - for only nine hundred and ninety nine dollars! It’ll look good in the living room”.

Harry wasn’t eavesdropping about Malfoy’s living arrangement. He was just happened to be very interested in the items on the shelf near the couple.

“No, you philistine.” Malfoy’s tone was fond. “It looks marvelous, but your sister will kill me if I let you add one more thing to those ‘miscellaneous, useless pile of trunks’ - her words, not mine - in your house. The flying stars are already awful enough.”

“Shuriken, _mi querido Dreico_. And I was planning to keep it in your condo.”

“My home is not your clubhouse, my dear Milos”.

“Really, cause in my clubhouse, there is you”.

Harry hoped little Scorpius would be willing to join with him the Anti-Sappiness of Happiness cult. Three couples were enough materials to start a propaganda, so he quickly set out for the recruitment, removing himself from the presence of, ugh, _Malfoy and love_.

The little blond was outside of the shop. He was standing on his toes, staring intently at a cactus planted in a yellow plastic pot that sat on a table much taller than him. Before Harry could warn him to be careful, Scorpius poked the cactus with a curious finger, then pulled back immediately with a small hiss and accidentally lost his balloon to the sky. He then stared at his pricked digit, which now featured with a growing dot of blood, looked up at his old fellow of a balloon, and thinned his pouted mouth. Harry, like an ambulance on fire, bolted to the child and spelled away the little wound and soothed away the pain and promised for another balloon, preventing the eminent eruption of a tantrum. Young Teddy had taught him so much.

“Now, why would you touch a plant with a lot of needles, hm?” Harry ruffled Scorpius hair, then thought of Malfoy fixing the mess of hair back to its prime state after Milos had tousled it, and decided to comb it back. “You know that it would hurt you, right?”

“Yes” Scorpius sniffed loudly “but I did it anyway”. And Harry was suddenly reminded of Malfoy and Buckbeak, then Malfoy and Death Eaters, so he quickly said:

“Do you like plants?”

“I dunno” Scorpius stared at him, looked around cautiously, then continued in a whisper “but you can do magic, so I’ll tell you. But Mista Potta can’t tell anyone else, not even Milos”. Then he made a very solemn face that no doubt had been inherited from his father, and said “pinky promise me”. Harry bit his lips to smother a smile, and did what he was told.

“My father promised to teach me to brew potions if I can remember all of the ingredients and most of them are plants” Harry was not surprised, trust Malfoy to teach his spawn potions first thing in magic. But the idea of a slimy Slytherin Draco Malfoy making a pinky promise with a five years old was so absurd that it made Harry smile in disbelief. “He said potions only required precee...presaizz…” Harry helped him with ‘precision’ “and smart thinking! And I really don’t need magic to be good at it!”

“You can’t do magic?” Harry blurted, and immediately regretted doing so when Scorpius’ sunny face shut down in a matter of seconds. Oh, Harry Potter was a very horrendous adult, and he was indeed very, very ashamed of himself. He was only grateful that Scorpius didn’t cry and make his father hear about this. The little Malfoy seemed very loveable.

“Father told me that I should not be impatient” poor Scorpius muttered, his baby face pinched. “I just don’t want father to be sad, Mista Potta”.

Harry didn’t know what to say to that, because he didn’t believe that Malfoy could ever really love his Muggle boyfriend, and didn’t think Malfoy would ever be entirely happy with a squib as a son.

“You can call me Harry” he said instead.

The young Malfoy attached to Harry like a little kneazle tail after that. They ventured more shops together, with Scorpius pointing at random items for Harry to answer his curious ‘whatzit’ and ’whatzat’, and prancing on that many of his witches and wizards friends here really like Muggles, albeit discreetly doing so. He told Harry that there isn't any magical community in Calgary - where the two Malfoys currently lived, and Harry was very surprised.

“How does your father buy magical things?”

“There are many shops in our neighborhood. They sell both Muggle and magical things. When I was three, me and father went out and mapped all the shops. He said it’s good that wizards can ‘eentagreat’ with the Muggles here”. Before Harry could laugh at Scorpius’ adorable use of vocabulary and the irony of Malfoy ‘eentagreat’ himself with Muggles, Scorpius continued “but he told me he didn’t think like that before, because he was taught very bad things and he was very mean to the Muggles”.

Scorpius then looked at Harry with his round, grey eyes “was father mean to the Muggles, Harry? He likes Milos and Ro and Jo very much”.

Harry’s uncomfortable shuffling was very obvious, but the light on the child face was unwavered, so he settled with “He will tell you himself when you are older, Scorpius” and was surprised when little blond only nodded ‘okay’. Maybe Malfoy too had dropped the conversation in the same fashion. “So who’s Jo?”

Harry learnt about Jo, the girl who lived next door, had very wicked Pokémon cards collection and had Rosita for a scary sister - “she always tell father that she’s coming for him, Harry!”, and whom Scorpius liked very much.

Malfoy had been sneaking suspicious glares at Harry, who was now strolling along after the couple with Scorpius’ childish hand wrapped around his stocky, adult index finger. They visited shops and walked back and forth in the Banff town all evening, passed by a castle that had been converted into a hotel, until Scorpius whimpered to Malfoy “can we leave now?”. They decided that it was time to have dinner.

Malfoy argued that if one’s desire is to enjoy the exquisite quality of the Albertan beef, one should seek for a fine and appropriate dining establishment which would serve the best selection of cuts; however, Milos insisted that if one wanted to make acquaintances, one should not act pretentious and one should just go to a nearby pub.

“Don’t be daft, Milos. Scorpius is with us” Malfoy said.

“And you think a five year old would sit still in a high class restaurant. At least in the pub he could play his ‘potion’ mixing ingredients house game” said Milos lightly.

Malfoy’s pink lips thinned, and his eyes gave a soft, apologetic glance to Scorpius, who was looking quite baffled after Milos’ unintentional remark. “We are going to a steakhouse” he said curtly with a finality that left no room for argument. Despite emitting sweet pheromone all about, Malfoy was still a Malfoy, Harry smirked.

The Chuck’s Steak House had already a busy evening when they arrived. Its warm atmosphere was fostered by the deep camel colour of two long, long row of leather sofas, which lined back to back in the middle of the restaurant, and by the golden oak tone of the tables. There on the dark wood paneled walls hung paintings of indigenous art and animals, all were in earthy colours.

Scorpius was starting to make a beeline for the long sofa but Malfoy caught the little bugger in his arm and hoisted him up by the waist, then requested the receptionist for a booth near the window. Milos and Harry obediently let Malfoy do all the talking and wine selecting, then took turn to flirt with their appointed waitress. Harry supposed Milos would be a terrific wingman with a very good taste, had he not been dating Malfoy.

“Arugula salad, tenderloin - eight oz, medium rare, with broccolini” Malfoy ordered, and Harry didn’t know why he had been expecting Malfoy to spit out his order in French, in spite of the plain English written clearly on the menu.

“Lemon and caper salmon and...and...Father, may I please have the mac n’ cheese croquettes?” Scorpius’ hopeful request was positively responded with a firm ‘you are sharing’.

“The onion soup, and twelve oz, rare ribeye and mashed potato for me, please” said Milos.

After Harry had ordered the onion soup, the eighteen oz bone-in striploin with garlic and thyme fries, Malfoy told them that they were all barbaric, beastly carnivores and ordered creamed spinach, garlic baby carrots, and grilled corn as sides to share.

Dinner was quite anticlimactic as Harry tried to work his cutlery as neatly as possible in front of the Malfoys, while answering most of Milos’ inquiries with practiced half truths.

“My job aims to help the relatively small, closed groups of individuals to accommodate and socialize with the civilization of the city life. I’m in the international branch, so I travel around quite often” said Harry.

“Oh, that’s cool. So you mean you’re like a teacher then” Milos mused.

“No, he means that he’s acting as an ambassador” Malfoy stared at Harry with bored, drooping eyes “from some faraway land, who come to other countries as a complete stranger, then try to impose cultural assimilation upon the little natives” he said lightly. “Potter means that he stands behind a veneer of doing good deeds, of creating a bridge between two cultures, but he unfortunately forgets that some traditions and customs are very worthy of preservation. Welcoming more ideas from the outside, the progressive side - especially of the majority - would only further suppresses the history that is on the brink of extinction, Potter.”

“Malfoy, my job is to not encourage destruction of any culture’s distinction. What I’m doing is to open the door for the limited knowledge of the small groups, and to help them exchange practical ideas with others for them to survive better in the world of the, as you said, majority.”

“But the exchange is one sided, is it not? How fair is that for the unique minority to give effort into incorporating with the giants, but is not repaid with the same mutual tolerance?”

“This is not even a fair conversation, Malfoy” Harry said “You know really well _how_ unique the minority is, and using its distinction and natural ability as excuses to segregate itself from the others is a very narrow-minded, egotistical form of thinking.”

“Potter, kindly don’t trip yourself on the way to the door of becoming a hypocrite. There are many bodies in the majority but their minds are as narrow and ignorant as they could ever be. You’re a half, I understand, but don’t tell me you can completely neglect the minority’s traditions just because of mere prejudice. ”

“I don’t understand Malfoy, you live with them, and they with you. You supposed to understand this!” said Harry indignantly.  

“What I mean is-”

Milos cleared his throat very loudly and got the two wizards’ head to turned abruptly to him “um, I’m a little confused” he said “I thought we were discussing about the Aboriginal rights and stuff.”

“Quite” said Harry and Malfoy. They shot a glare at each other. Why Malfoy was still objecting the expansion of magical community to Muggles’ idea was beyond Harry, when Malfoy’s gorgeous boyfriend was sitting right there beside him.

“Well, I’m ready for dessert” sighed Malfoy, his pale hand found its way to Scorpius’ hair and combed back and forth methodically. Harry liked to think it was a meditation for temper control “and a refill of wine”.

“Thank God, you finally said something I can agree with” Harry huffed, and was momentarily stupefied by Malfoy’s rewarding, playful smile. The pheromone that he had forgotten now enveloped him like a soft, mouthwatering scent of Molly’s freshly baked sweet pies, so Harry decided to let the sugar of his cheesecake compensate for the thing that he couldn't get.

They talked more about Harry - his current living space, his experience in travelling, anything but the purpose of his job - until the elephant in the room was brought up by Milos.

“So, tell me about young Dreico, Harry”.

Harry smirked at Malfoy. “A natural leader, Milos, an epitome of pioneer, the only Amazing Bouncing Ferret in the whole school” Milos frowned when Harry yelped. A particular ruthless kick was aimed at his leg under the table. “Inside joke” he explained, and passed the requested mustard and ketchup bottles to Scorpius, hoping the smart child will stir his ‘potion’ into his father’s glass of wine.

“Huh, I’ve always thought Dreico was a prim, quiet nerd” Milos thought aloud and Harry had to bark a laugh.

“He organized a hate campaign for me, Milos, and even made the badges himself. Quite an ardent hater, he was” Harry laughed at Malfoy. Their childhood feud was always the best topic to pick off each other.

“Potter, let me remind you that without my many humble considerations to your annoying existence in the past, you would’ve end up an arrogant git” said Malfoy with an aristocrat smugness on his face.

“Malfoy, with many of your humble considerations to my annoying existence in the past, you now remind me that you’re such an arrogant git”.

“Merlin” Malfoy sighed dramatically “how strange it is to witness a witty Potty. I knew he has potential! He could have been so much more. An outstanding student even without favouritism, Milos, a prefect, even a supportive member of my wonderful _Potter Stinks_ social association.”

“You were a prick in school, no thanks”.

“And I’m so very grateful that you are still following my notable legacy, thanks”.

They smirked at each other, but Harry stopped when Milos reached out to circled an arm around Malfoy’s shoulders, and pinched Malfoy’s white cheek playfully.

“ _Amor mío,_ you’ve ruined my all loveliest fantasy of an innocent you wearing only nerdy glasses, loose, Western white uniform shirt, and white socks!” the Latino whispered loud enough for only the adult audience to hear, and pecked on Malfoy’s ear. Malfoy blushed, and Harry almost gagged (not because of the bedroom talk, no, it was hot, Harry had to applause for Milos) at the surged of pheromone in the air. Apparently Malfoy was also a fan of exhibitionism.

So Harry had to save his own arse and announced that they should leave, before Malfoy could respond with something, Harry bet, close enough to ‘naughty delinquent’ and released a ton more of sweet scent for only the alpha wizard to endure. They paid, then Harry walked the Malfoys and Milos to the parking lot and unloaded their bikes, then to the another parking lot which held Milos’ car. The whole town was now tainted warm orange by the light of the streetlamps and closing shops. The cold, breezy air exclusively owned by the mountains nipped on their skin as they made their way through the once busy street that was now bereft of visitors and chaos.

When they reached Milos’ car, Scorpius had already fallen asleep in Malfoy’s arms, his chin on his father’s shoulders. Harry thought that it was best to not wake the little blond for goodbye, preventing the possibility of him making a scene, but Malfoy only scoffed ‘Potter, Malfoys do not make scenes’ - to which Harry couldn’t help but roll his eyes at - and let Harry pet Scorpius’ head.

“Well, Harry. This has been very nice. Wait for me to look for my business card. I hope you will contact me whenever you want to go out during your stay here” Milos started to the far of corner of the parking lot and rummaged around in the car, leaving Harry and Malfoy standing alone together. There they stood, in a silence that the not-quite-strangers were often familiar with. The gap between them seemed like ten years apart and a world away.

“I don’t like all the Muggles, Potter” said Malfoy “but neither do I like all the wizards. Whom I do and don’t like doesn’t matter, same for you, O Saviour. It is not about prejudice. I’m not against your idea of mingling with Muggle culture - that’s exactly what I’ve been doing; however, leaving behind a part of myself to be forgotten and watching my son grow up to be ignorant is what I can’t bear to do. It’s relatable. Children will be curious about their parents’ marriage or early lives, and the parents will give them an album as a physical evidence to foster the reality of their stories. The difference between listening and witnessing is significant, children are not blind believers.

“Think, if the pureblood tradition is eradicated, there would be nothing left for Scorpius to learn about the potential of moral corruption in cruelty and superiority complex. Yes, don’t look at me like that Potter, I want him to be good and humble just like his father. Don’t you dare laugh. Nevertheless, he will listen, but my words will remain only in the shape of an abstract nightmare, then he will forget them. What I want for him is a good preparation, one that I didn’t have the chance to possess.” Malfoy looked at his sleeping son, his grey eyes gentle and his expression wistful. “Sometimes it’s strange to realize that I would do so much for him. You must find that strange, eh, Potter?”

“No,” said Harry “not really”.

“Why is that? I was expecting at least a jab, you disappointed me.”

“Wanker” Harry laughed, he found it strange, too, for him to laugh at Malfoy without scorn. Time mellowed most things, he guessed. “It’s because you’re a selfish prick, and for his affection you will do anything.”

Malfoy looked at him, his grey eyes tinged the soft golden light that Muggle used to follow the waltzing dancers on a darkened stage, and Harry shivered when he imagined that the spotlight was for him. But Malfoy saved him, by giving him a smile that years from now on he could never forget.

“Potter, I regret to inform that whether you like it or not, we will certainly cross path once again.” Malfoy said.

“Milos is giving me his number, Malfoy, not yours” said Harry.

“Stupid Gryffindor, never heed any genuine warnings. I do dearly hope that you’ll have a stroke when you see me.”

“You know what? You’re not that amazing, just a bouncy ferret git” grinned Harry.

Malfoy scowled, but he huffed a laugh. Harry almost felt pleased with himself.

“Found it!” cried Milos “give a call whenever you’re bored, yeah? The city is pretty lame, but we’ll find something for you” he then gave Harry a fond pat on the shoulders. “Adiós, mi querido amigo.” 

Harry smiled at the handsome Latino while slipping the business card into his pocket “Thanks, mate. I will soon find ways to disturb you”.

“Please don’t. I’m way too old now to compete with boys”. Malfoy sighed and was pulled by the waist to stand closer to a laughing Milos.

“Bye, Milos. Malfoy” Harry nodded, already turning to walk away when he heard a sneer: “Don't come back too soon, Potter”.

Milos’ laughter echoed in the wind and through the subdued tourist town.

Then Malfoy was gone, leaving Harry an amusing smile plastered on his face and another one engraved in his memory.

Not a single trivial thing about Ginny, the Witch Weekly, and muscles, had slipped into Harry’s mind that night when he laid in bed in the Okotoks town. It was quite busy worrying about Scorpius, that whether or not he will be upset when he woke up and found Harry gone, and busy being adamant about ignoring the lingering scent of Malfoy on his hand.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I just want to note that this story will not follow the usual fashion of AOB theme, because these genders applied on the characters quite later in life, where they have already developed their own personalities and quirks. 
> 
> If you don't mind that, please, enjoy!

“Hermione, this is quite scandalous. You supposed to react better than this.”

The witch’s fuzzy locks of hair swung back and forth as she shook her head in exasperation. Trust Harry Potter to floo just right after she had tugged little Rose in for her nap. She thanked Merlin for the Muffliato charm.

“No, Harry. Draco Malfoy was exonerated because you’ve justified for him. It’s unlikely that he was punished with the alternative spell” Hermione said. “It could be that he’s an omega by nature, simple as that. He even has a child, Harry.”

“But Hermione, even if he has Scorpius he’s still unmarked, Malfoy’s pheromone was making me mental yesterday. And does he look anything like an omega to you? He ruled the whole Slytherin clique in Hogwarts, you know. Even got himself two lumps of bodyguard whose heads weighted five stones heavier than his, at the age eleven” said Harry.

“Well, it’s quite lovely for you to think omegas are incapable of using their little brains to climb up the social hierarchy. Oh, don't pull that face, I know what you alphas are thinking.”

“Hermione, you’re the smartest witch I know, and could even become the Minister of Magic if you want to, omega or not”.

“Tell that to Ron and Molly, would you? I would really like to get out of the house, and do something besides feeding the baby and cooking dinner and sweeping floors now” the witch’s eyes dimmed cheerlessly. “I’m so tired all the time, doing housework and child caring, but still bored to death, Harry. Four years ago I was tired, but never bored.”

The wizard made a sound of sympathy. “Tell Ron to bring baby Rose to work tomorrow. You’ve earned a day to yourself. To do whatever you want.”

“I’m going to need more than twenty-four hours to rule the British wizarding world” she smiled. “Well, off you go to work. I think Rose is squirming in her sleep. Bye, Harry”.

Harry then pulled his head out of the crackling green fire, and thanked Gino the Waiter for letting him use the kitchen floo. He had been so excited to talk to Hermione about Malfoy, but he didn’t want to appear too eager and she wasn’t very interested, so he dropped the topic lest he should seem ‘obsessive’ once again.

So Malfoy remained snugly in his mind, and Harry didn’t like it one bit.

Once he was alone in his room, the curtains closed on Harry’s silent command and his work clothes lifted themselves from the drawers to flatten on the bed. On the night stand stood a black, leather briefcase that held the wizard’s same old notes, which had been unaltered for four years - but luckily he was Harry Potter, so his classes were always naturally immune to the sleeping curse that Professor Binn had bequeathed to his lectures. No matter where he went he uttered the same words and talked for hours the same philosophy of the need to procure more knowledge about the Muggle world. It was a steady job, and Harry didn't mind its monotonous cadence. Instead of saving people's lives he saved people's arses from the embarrassment of wearing peculiar clothes and talking nonsensical things in front of Muggles. He was happy enough.

A black, minuet houndstooth patterned linen tie was tightened around the collar of his wine coloured shirt, which was clumsily tucked in the waist of a pair of Lee Cooper straight fit black denims. If he was to teach people about having suitable appearance in the Muggle world, he would have to try and look somewhat professional at work.

After a wrestle match with his socks and shoes, Harry started to gather his wand, brief case, and knickknacks. He paused to look at Sirius' minimized motorbike now posing temptingly on the boxy telly, but decided to travel by the public transits today. Arthur Weasley had always been delighted to hear about Harry's venturous experience on Muggle transportation in different countries, so he always tried to find excuse to go places by the Muggle way. It also helped when the Aurors in his class asked for details, about which Harry would be sincerely happy to answer, unless they were about Voldemort, Elder wand, lightning bolt scar, resurrection, threesome with his best mates, foursome with his best mates and his best mate’s sister, his phone number, Ginny's phone number, and his pants’ colour of the day.

About half past eight, off he went to the Apparition point and landed behind a foo dog stone statue in front of a temple. Harry made an educated guess that he was in the Chinatown part of Calgary downtown. Invading the already narrow sidewalks was a long chain of small stores, whose walls and signs and cupolas were mainly dominated by solid red, yellow, and green. Harry straightened himself, and casually strolled passed an herb shop in which sat an old Chinese lady, whose hand was lazily waving a fuchsia fan and eyes he knew were watching him. In the white skyline stood the mighty blocks of buildings and the skinny Calgary Tower. Harry wondered whether the red compartment topping the structure just magically rotated a bit to the right, or it was his eyes that tricked him to think so.

Despite being in mid-June, Calgary's arsehole of a weather still deliberately pissed off its people with surprise summer rain storms. The yellow sunlight from dawn lasted about three hours before it was obscured by heavy clouds, and Harry knew from the heart of a Londoner that when the grey masses of condensed vapor appeared gloomy, they could be anything but an aesthetic display. How strange that whenever he walked a foreign land, he remembered home. He hurried along Centre Street, but slowed his feet in front of The Bow skyscraper to appreciate the architecture of the reflective, bow-like curvaceous (hence the name) body that was framed by a white, diamond-shaped skeleton. He caught the train on 7th Avenue to 1st Street, then walked to the Brookfield Place building, whose glass exterior mirrored all the grooves of the clouds’ shadow.

Following the Muggles out of the lifts on the office floor, Harry headed straight to the lavatory. Until it was clear that there were no Muggles in any stalls, the wizard hovered one hand under the hand dryer, and with the other tapped his wand on its body and read the password: ‘nanaimo bar’. He was glad that this one was in easy English, for the last one had came in Thai letters and no sodding guide of pronunciation. Instead of blowing out warm air, the machine started to suck in Harry’s hand, eventually his entire body, then spitted him out on the other side of the wall. What Harry had been anticipating to be a dingy room for piping system turned out to be the same Muggle lav that he had left seconds ago, but instead of men in business suits Harry found a few wizards in their familiar flowing robes. They all looked at Harry, perhaps because it was because of his Muggle clothing and his somewhat familiar face, so he quickly made his escape to the designated classroom.

The group of young Aurors, whom Harry worked with, was already sitting in desks when he arrived. They seemed to perk up a little at his introduction, but otherwise remained calmly indifferent or they were just too polite to interrupt for autographs. First session always dotted on the necessity to avoid looking conspicuous in Muggle areas, so Harry gave the class a general guidance in dressing for specific scenarios and a list of strict rules of no funny hat, no bright colour, no Halloween costumes unless it was the occasion, and no outfits from the runway on Muggle telly that was seemed to be _too much_ , etc… Sometimes Harry would still silently laughed at the irony of him teaching people how to dress, since his abysmal of fashion sense still hadn't improve beyond plain robes, work clothes, jumpers, and denims. If only his friends could see him now.

After wrapping up the section, Harry politely declined the lunch offers from some glowing-eyed junior Aurors, then made his way to the lav and the hand dryer to head for the urban plaza site. The wizard was waiting for a coffee when his eyes spotted the world's most insufferable blond - the subject in Harry’s mind and the pain in Harry's arse, moving cleverly through the a sea of Muggle business men and women while holding two cups of Starbucks. Harry grumbled and abandoned his coffee order, purposefully letting Malfoy to deal with his lovely, decaffeinated personality.

The blond wizard was about to squeeze into the elevator when Harry bellowed his name (with a gusto!) across the dining area. Harry didn't even feel bad when Malfoy looked like a chagrined pet who just got scolded in front of many the curious strangers, and advanced confidently to him. All that heroic display and poor Harry Potter only got an elaborated sneer in return. Thanks ever so much.

“What the fuck, have you any professionalism? Even a mere five years old - oh, scratch that, my midget of a Malfoy, would have known better than acting so uncouth in public, Potter” hissed Malfoy, then scowled some more at Harry when he realized that he had been abandoned by the lift.

“You would be a true delight to not meet again, Malfoy” quipped Harry, but apparently Malfoy wasn't in an appreciative mood for humour, for his grey eyes bore a shade darker than the accumulating storm outside the glass edifice, and his pink mouth seemed to promise a vicious tempest of many office-inappropriate words. “But I hope it’s obvious enough that I called you for a reason” Harry added quickly.

“And I hope your dimwitted arse knows that reason might’ve been not important enough for you to shame me at my workplace. Oh, I hope that I won't ever have to see your arse again for good.”

“Shut up, Malfoy. Your pheromone is talking” Harry smirked.

The glee of watching a red-faced Malfoy swallowing Harry's last words had never gone astray. When came a Muggle, who rudely excused himself to be let into the elevator, the two wizards then realized that they had been blocking the elevator’s entrance the whole time. They both cast one glare at the Muggle and stood right where they were. Harry huffed: “Look Malfoy, we need to talk.”

“Oh, sincerely sorry. I’m afraid that my pheromone is talking.”

“Malfoy-”

“Excuse me! Can you please move!” said the Muggle.

“No, not Malfoy, Potter. It’s pheromone talking, remember?”

“Pardon me!”

“Why can't we have a normal chat like everyone else?” said Harry.

“Move out of the way, please!” The Muggle snarled.

“Oh, I don't know about that.”

Now, Harry liked to think himself a nice bloke. He had never growled, nor bared his teeth, nor scared the bejeebers out of anyone with his alpha nature. But if Malfoy thought himself a special snowflake, Harry was very happy to offer him the utmost exception of treatment: giving Malfoy all of the abovementioned, with an additional touch of malice.

Harry didn't even regret one bit when Malfoy started trembling hard enough that the coffee sloshed out from the two cups he was holding and splashed on his shiny shoes, and didn't have one bit of sympathy when Malfoy looked at him with almost watery grey eyes, whom a shadow of fear was slowly casting over. Harry understood now the wondrous taste of being a big, bad bully.

He must’ve looked terrifying, because the annoying Muggle who was trying to be polite went pale, then hurried away from the wizards. Poor bloke was going to take the stairs, Harry guessed unapologetically.

But it was quite admirable that Malfoy, in his shaken state, could still keep his sneer neatly in place. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk.”

“There's nothing worthy to discuss.”

“You’re the discussion, Malfoy.”

“Why, I never. Such honour I have no doubt to absolutely decline.”

“Why are you here?”

“Potter, you deaf imbecile. I refuse to-”

“ _Why_ are you here, Malfoy?”

Malfoy flinched at Harry’s tone, but the spine of his posture was rigidly defiant.

“I am not intimidated by you, Potty.” Harry didn't know whether to snort at Malfoy’s pettiness of using pet names, or the fact that Malfoy’s fingers were nearly crushing his cups. “I have no obligation and you have no rights to coerce me into an unappointed Auror interrogation. Please kindly fuck off so I can deliver coffee to my assistant, go home, and pretend that your bloody nine-life existence and I never met.”

“Coffee” Harry said.

“What?”

“Let me buy you coffee.”

Malfoy left eye twitched. “Potter, I have a boyfriend. Tall, Latino, Milos.”

“God, Malfoy.” Harry sighed exasperatingly, he certainly wasn't going to listen to _Dreico_ gloating about his man. “Half of your coffee is on your shoes, if I must buy your stupid arse out for you to talk, just let me do so.”

It was only when Harry mentioned the ending lunch hour did Malfoy finally move, with his unwavered suspicion, to Starbucks. He completely ignored Harry’s glare while ordering four extra pastries with his Earl Grey tea and macchiato. Just like in Hogwarts, Malfoy took his tea with a load of sugar (5 to 6 bags) and no milk. Harry wondered how Malfoy’s white teeth still  hadn’t been decaying all these years, and gratefully sipped his delicious, if not a bit diluted, bitter black coffee.

“How do you handle Scorpius on a sugar rush?” Malfoy knew that Harry had changed the interrogating tactics, but only shrugged.

“I don’t let his grabby hands on more than one or two treats per day. He’s quite greedy when it comes to indulgence.”

“Runs in the family” said Harry, not expecting the little smile that graced wonders on Malfoy’s face. He wished he hadn’t seen it. It was bad means for Harry’s addiction of fugitive, hard-earned prizes; however, it was difficult to rehabilitate when Scorpius was the only safe choice for discussion.

“Does he stay at daycare when you’re at work?” Mentally justifying that he was making a point, Harry nonchalantly raked his eyes over Malfoy’s Muggle working clothes of a white crisp shirt, skinny black tie tugged in an oxford blue waistcoat with matching, smooth slacks, and black leather shoes that were a bit dulled by spilt coffee. He remained completely apathetic at the show of the ample curve of Malfoy’s bum when the git bent down to clean his shoes, but he did wish Malfoy would clean them for a bit longer.

“No. He’s going to primary school in September, so I’m letting him free this summer. He plays with Jovanna and Rosita next door, and I call him back when I’m home” said Malfoy.

Harry watched Malfoy’s mesmerising thin wrist, wreathed by a shiny silver watch, stir the tea, and pretended that Malfoy sending his heir to go to a Muggle school and letting him interact with Muggle neighbours were completely ordinary facts. Somehow mentioning Malfoy’s pureblood upbringing seemed very rude then, so he balled up his thoughts and sent them to the back of his head to deal with later. “Rosita, the canoe girl?” Harry asked.

“Yes, the crazy thing has a Canmore boyfriend. Got a part time job there and drag us with her up to Banff on weekends. Honestly, it’s exhausting.”

“I thought she’s competing with Milos for you - though for Circe's sake I don’t know why” Harry frowned.

“I act as her backup props. Am I not a generous man? Being manhandled into her young infatuations, and demand only five hours of babysitting my son for a price.” The blond faked a sigh, and Harry thought Malfoy and ‘manhandle’ went really well together when the stupid git smoothed out the fat paper bag full of pastries, for all which Harry had paid but not without a pain in his chest. Big chained coffee establishments were really, really mean money monsters. So was Malfoy.

“I’m surprised you’re selling yourself short.”

“Sometimes affection is more important, Potter. Rosita makes wonderful empanadas. One reason she keeps blatantly flirting with me is because Milos doesn't want to admit that her Spanish cooking is as good as his mother’s.” Malfoy smirked, he looked mirthfully mischievous just like his eleven year old self. “Flattery is cheap, mortals love it and she the most of them all. And well, it wasn’t completely rotten meeting you Potter, but I-”

“How did you know I work here?” Harry will not let the ferret run away with his smug arse and his expensive pastries, not so fast. “You said last night that we will cross path again, does that mean that you knew where I work?”

“Potter, your poorly executed half-truth of a job description couldn’t be more obvious. You’re working for P.M.S” Malfoy said, his eyes a tad more delightful when they caught Harry flabbergast.

“What?”

“Your bloody program, Potter. Gee, such a dedicated employee you are.”

Harry reckoned that without his minor son and his lover around, Malfoy’s mouth ran miles beyond Malfoy’s manner.

“Is that what you call my Practical Muggle Socializing program? P.M.S, really?” Harry was torn between acting irritated and laughing his arse off at the absurd acronym. He knew something was wrong when Arthur had come up with the program’s name.

“No, Potter. The whole magical community of Alberta calls it so. Don’t take it personally, we like things a bit conservative here.”

“We?” Harry was in deep disbelief. “Malfoy, I can't imagine your posh, pompous arse belongs anywhere else but Britain.”

Malfoy laughed, and if Harry wasn’t still so shocked with Malfoy’s blatant side switching, he would have find it almost nice. “I may have my loyalties for the weather, the accent, and the tea rituals, but not the land, Potter.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

Malfoy’s face suddenly resembled a freshly blown candle. His cheeks were now waxy white and seemed as if they were melting, his irises paled to the colour of a gossamer breath of coiling smoke, who encircled pupils as black as ash within which twitched an angry lick of a remnant of orange ember. He seemed to be ruminating about something, and it couldn’t have been good, for his grip on the pastries bag was deliberately tight.

“Perhaps we should discuss about something else more interesting, or I will go back to my work” said Malfoy.

“It’s been ten years since the war. No one cares. We have the new secondary gender issue now, and you need to catch up” said Harry.

“No, not the people. Only the land.” Malfoy said.

“You aren’t making any sense. People move on, they know how to forgive, they change. You should take Scorpius home.”

“Potter, no. I don't want to come back. I don't want to talk about this” Malfoy said, the pastries bag which he was smoothing earlier crushed pitifully in his sudden clutch.

“Malfoy, it's much better than before, you will have to face it any-”

“The British land, Potter, on which trampled a thousand decades of honour and name of the Malfoy ancestors, lived once a psychotic, noseless bastard of a tyrant, and built a senseless gender pyramid for its own use of population sustainability. The British wizarding society now has wicked humans turned dangerous beasts roaming out and about, and the world do not have enough Golden Boys to save the unfortunate bottom feeders, Potter. How could I - a useless fucking omega Death Eater, the perfect example for a scapegoat in society - protect my son from the oppression of hierarchy, oh-so-new issue, that is deliberately hunting the arse of my sort? The war mars Britain, Potter, so does this fucked up system. I rather raise Scorpius here on a foreign land than in a shattered shambles of a home.” Malfoy said, his voice bleak and impassive.  

When he looked at Harry, his brooding gaze carried a grey flare of vulnerability so artless that it caught the alpha off guard. Yet, it was fleeting; now his eyes were veiled again by nothing but the bitterest venom of hatred. “And none of that is your problem, is it? With your name carved on the Merlin medals woven in green ribbon and with no one knocking you down the street or knocking you up with a child, you don’t have any fucking problem. Even barren land buds hope and joy for you. You don't have to do shit. Then you pretend to like the passivity, have an unconscious life-time fast on adrenaline and tell yourself you can live without the novelty of earning something at the end of hard trials, then slowly you become nothing. You now don't even have the right to sympathize with a scum of a Death Eater, or an omega, because I’ve crawled on miles of nails to get here. You should’ve never leave your beloved Britain, because without its limelight, you are nothing. Unanchored as you are, you have no rights to tell me what to do or to go back.”

“You don't fucking know anything, you know fucking nothing-”

“But do tell, Potter. Why are _you_ here?”

Three pots of dark roasted coffee on the counter exploded. Its glinting shards and its dark liquid barely caressed the heels of the two wizards, both of them engaged the other in a silent rivalry of belligerence in the middle of a Muggle hubbub. One wizard smiled, his eyes iridescently nostalgic. He said: “It seems like someone still hasn't been able to change.”

“You are an arse. Fuck you and your arrogant fucking arse” said the other wizard.

“Shut up, Potter. Your pheromone is talking.”

Then Draco Malfoy left, taking with him two beverages, four pastries, his alluring, aromatic scent, and leaving behind only emotions for Harry to brood over. Harry felt that he had been blatantly ripped off.

Heavy with clouds and illuminated by the weak yellowish green tinge of the last rays of light, the sky hung gloomily above Harry when he arrived back at Okotoks. He could’ve get pissed at the bar of the hotel, but tonight he wanted a solitary reverie. He must floo Hermione for a Hangover potion, or for a talk would be nice, too; yet, Harry pondered what people these days often do besides talking to each other. After all, his talk with Malfoy left him feeling more forlorn than ever in the past four years.

He had always been too stupidly spontaneous to not initiate disasters, so Harry took Sirius’ motorcycle to the Village Liquor Store, got a good old bottle of Buffalo Trace, then drove to a grassy moor to watch the small town below sang the _clinking_ and _clanging_ chorus of dinner time, while unhurriedly bringing the cheap Muggle bourbon to his lips. As much as he seemed like a cliché teenager drinking and finding peace in solitude on a barren hill, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Harry didn't need the liquor to think, but he did think more and also worse with liquor. The fiery liquid aroused the temper of many, but other than making his legs wobble and his vision blurry and his head screaming next morning, it comforted him. It whispered in his ears to ignore the winding paths in the labyrinth of his conscience and to kill the possibility of second guessing, then played with his senses until he relent to its sweet, simple suggestions of what always seem like a good idea when he was drunk. He went and flooed Ginny.

Luna face flamed up in the hearth.

“Oh, hello Harry!” she chirped.

“Hi, Luna” said Harry, grinning awkwardly. He put the thought of Luna getting cozy with Ginny at her place to the back of his head. He will deal with it later. “Is Ginny home?”

“Yes, I’ll call her for you.” Luna’s face disappeared from the fire, then reshaped some seconds later. She smiled “Harry, I hope you will get well soon from your nasty Loser's Lurgy. Friendships are quite tiring to manage when you’re ill, isn't it?” Then she left a very confused Harry in the floo.

“Oi, Harry!” said Ginny, her strong voice chased away the trance-like effect of Luna’s dreamy one. She was starting to sound like Ron. “Why didn't I see you at my birthday? Where's my present?”

Harry grinned sheepishly, his eyes didn't move. “Sorry, Gin. My project started early, I have to leave before your party started. I’m in Canada now.”

She looked at him suspiciously, and Harry took the scant time to watch her profile. Even in the green, flickering flame he could tell that her jaws had widen and her features were a little more intense. The fuller brows sat at an angle that seemed to challenge the beholder, and underneath the pair of bright eyes spoke confidence and determination. Ginny was beautiful, but how strange it was when he realized that now she seemed to carry none of the comfort that he had once loved. Her endearing mass of freckles, and the admirable fierce colour of her hair were now nothing but familial trademarks of the Weasley. Malfoy was a whole world different, with silver metal for eyes and pale silk for hair, but Harry didn't dare to compare them. He was afraid of what he might come to realize.

“Anything you want from here for a present?” said Harry

Ginny huffed. “Don't you overlap my birthday gift with my souvenir, I won't allow it.”

“Oh, I don't know, special treatment? Ron might whoop.” They both started laughing, but they didn't know whichever who stopped first and unconsciously ease into a pregnant silence that followed after.

“Is he talking to you?” asked Harry.

“No” Ginny said. “To you?”

“No. Only Hermione.”

“Yes, Hermione.” Ginny smiled fondly.

“How are you?” asked Harry.

“Well enough,” said Ginny “you should’ve seen me growled at my loud beta neighbor yesterday, now she's louder than ever.”

Harry smiled.

“What did you have? Wizard or Muggle?” asked Ginny.

“Muggle bourbon. Need to get my mind off things.”

“Your pissed state of mind never get off things, I recall.”

“Well, you know it.”

“I do” the witch smiled.

“How’s Luna?”

Harry knew he had an ugly, deadpan tendency when he was sloshed, so did Ginny, though still she startled in the flame. But when she spoke, she sounded determined.

“She’s fine, I guess. Luna is fine.”

“Is that so?”

Ginny subtly took in a deep breathe, she held eyes with the wizard. “Harry, listen. Do you still think that I should’ve been an omega?”

“We talked about this, Gin. There's no need-”

“No, let me speak. Sometimes ago, I tried to imagine what it would be like to marry you, and to have a family with you. Because of our statuses, we would adopt three kids, send them to Hogwarts, and you come home to me after work. So I watched Hermione and Ron and Rose, thinking they might entice me. And they are so happy, Harry; yet, not a single visit at their place has been able to impress me enough to envy them. I’m angry at Ron more than ever when he’s so insisted in encouraging - no, pushing - us to have what he has. I understand that, but all he sees is the soft romanticism. Family and happy marriage do that to his head, meeting the one mate and staying happily and safely together with their good children for the rest of his life. But I don't want that, commitment doesn't suit me well, either as an alpha or omega. I want something elusive, someone whom I fret to lose, whom I would race with time so I can love them now, with no need for promises of tomorrow. Why, now I am sappy” she smiled, and Harry couldn’t resist the infectious gesture, however contradictory his heart felt.

“I know you want the same thing, Harry. We both worship adventure, and we together would be nothing but a married couple in a cage. I love you, I wouldn’t want that for you. Let me ask you again, Harry. Should I have been an omega? Would you want that?”

Distant sounds started with an effect of a malfunctioning vintage radio in Harry’s mind. He heard short intervals of Hermione’s decisive and clever voice, amplified by a Sonorous charm, promoting her advocacy for a change in justice at the heart of Diagon Alley. Then another voice, with Hermione's exact pronunciation and calm tone, laced with exhaustion in the stuffed kitchen of her house, and somewhere in the background an indignant cry of a baby echoed. Harry recalled Malfoy’s drawls, once lengthy and sedate with a superior timbre, now spoilt with defeat.

“Harry?” Ginny called.

“No,” Harry said “no, Ginny. You and Luna, you're great together. And I’m surprise how easy it is for me to say that.”

“Bugger, Harry. You sound so relief that now I’m sort of offended. Were I that much of a nuisance?” the alpha witch laughed.

“Yes, you definitely just freed me from yourself, Gin. I’m forever in debt.”

“Prat. But does that mean I get the special treatment?” Ginny whistled excitedly.

Harry curtly replied: “You’re sounding a bit like Ron. It’s disturbing.” Then shut off his floo with the redhead's distorted face full of horrified realization.

Tomorrow found Harry pretending not to search for any walking person with a white blond head. He was quite disgruntled, for he had jeopardized his job by dismissing the class early just to stand in a corner and overlook the plaza, waiting for Malfoy, and now it was quite late in lunch time. Malfoy surely was not the type to skip work just because of a menace had reappeared in his life, but where was he? When the next day came and still no Malfoy, Harry was quite concerned, and mused that the pastries, with which the git had bled Harry’s wallet, would not last for long. At the same spot and the same time, Harry stood for three more days, and every day he grew more and more sullen and anxious. His mind became more creative in imagining how Malfoy was faring: healthy or sick, happy or frustrated, safe or in danger. Then it became vehemently impatient, concluding that Malfoy was definitely avoiding Harry, and thinking whether or not he should punch the coward the moment he show up. During the weekends he contemplated calling Milos about Malfoy, but however unnerved he was, Harry Potter would never stoop to that level of desperate obsession. With that in mind, he constantly reminded himself to wait.

On Monday of a new week, Malfoy swept into his view with his nose in the air and so much of his accustomed casualness that Harry almost didn’t recognize him. The alpha wizard didn’t believe how his own body could move so fast. If anyone would tell him later that he had practically pounced on Malfoy, he would politely correct them that: ‘no, I tripped’.

With Malfoy’s wrist secured in his grip, Harry dragged him through the crowd of curious Muggles, made a beeline to the hand dryer, and went for his class while ignoring Malfoy’s furious hisses and curses at his back. Once they were inside the room, Harry flung Malfoy tumbling onto one of the desks and waved his hand to lock the door and set up one or two private charms. Then he loomed over Malfoy.

The blond berk had a nerve to look annoyed in his position. He looked ridiculous: his stupid, probably pricey, pale silver tie was askew and was almost untucked from the cream pinstriped waistcoat; one of the white shirtsleeves that once folded neatly on an elbow was coming undone, now half way down an ivory forearm, and was obscuring the skull of his Dark Mark; some rebellious locks of blond hair fell from his primly styled head and gently alighted upon the slightly flushed cheeks. Ha! Finally, the day of Draco Malfoy looked nothing but inelegant and improper! Harry thought the sneaky ferret completely deserved this catastrophe of dishevelment, and was so pleased to watch him suffered from it. Even Malfoy’s belt was shifted too much to the left to look-...

“Potter, get your fucking eyes up here”.

Harry told himself that he will not fail to conceal the crack on his vigilance when facing with an enemy, he had had four years of Auror training and a whole childhood of being the hunted and all. He nonchalantly and gradually lift his eyes, still wanting to take several more memorable moments of Malfoy’s pathetic state - for completely innocent blackmail reason. “You look awful, Malfoy” Harry said.

“If this is what you ambushed me for, then in all honesty, it's a complete waste of my time” scowled Malfoy.

“Why weren't you at work?” said Harry.

“Do keep yourself from sniffing, Potter.”

Had the alpha wizard not realized that he was standing face to face with the blond in quite a close proximity, and that he was rapidly inhaling his scent, he would’ve thought Malfoy meant he was being nosy.

“Why weren't you here?” he said, choosing to ignore Malfoy’s prissiness.

“None of your concern.”

“You're an unmarked omega. Things can happen.”

“Less here than in Britain.”

“That has nothing to do with this.”

“Why, I thought it's your favorite topic, Potter.”

“ _Drop it._ Where were you, Malfoy?”

Malfoy unmistakably cowed back at Harry’s brassy growl, but his movement seemed unfinished, as if he was fighting the involuntary response of his limbs.

“Home.” Malfoy said.

“Why?”

“Prying is not a pretty habit, Potter.”

“Old habits die hard. Talk.”

“Clearly scarce in effort. Colour me surprised.”

“Malfoy-”

Malfoy lazily perched himself on a desk, and drawled “Make yourself comfortable, I can watch you all day.”

Many in the Auror gossip circle had been whispering about Harry Potter’s famous possession of a nasty temper and a knack to show off his control of uncontrollable magic. Let it be assumed that it wasn’t entirely a mere rumour. Malfoy seemed very confused when Harry’s hands took hold of his, and the default unfriendly frown between his brows deepened as he found a ghost of mischief haunted the green eyes that were watching him.

“Malfoy, I’m giving you two choices.” The omega wizard huffed “Lucky me.”

“One, you can kindly tell me what you up to, and save our precious time; if not…” Harry flippantly shrugged “we stay right here until you can”.

All should’ve know that a Malfoy can always claw out deception from anywhere, even on the benign countenance of the most virtuous Saviour of the world.

“This is futile. I’m leaving” Malfoy said then attempted to yank his hands from Harry’s, but the calloused, tanned hands were now clenching his like hot bronze vises. Malfoy’s eyes, which Harry knew were fogged with sheer fright, didn’t even have the time to look at him, for they closed immediately when an old vase once standing docile in a corner suddenly exploded, and one of its flying, wicked fragments barely brush the skin on the blond’s nose; and they closed again when a forgotten bottle of ink appeared from nowhere and knocked the pale head in the back. Then it became a chaos: the chalks escaped from their cardboard prison and slashed wildly through the air, their bodies left behind white shadows that resembled the tails of comets; books were flying like cursed Bludgers; two wooden desks began to engage in a full scale battle like two merciless bicorns fighting for the same paramour; chairs after chairs flung themselves to the wall and rained its spear-liked splinters everywhere.

Harry was elated to feel Malfoy’s grip in his hand became all tense and desperate at every loud bang and every objects that seemed to aimed at him, and the omega wizard didn’t even realize that Harry had relaxed his hold and started circling the dry pad of his thumbs soothingly on the white knuckles.

“Make it stop, Potter!” yelped Malfoy when the desk he was sitting on rocked violently and deposited him onto the floor. If it wasn’t for the holding hand thing, he would’ve fell face down rather than on his knees. The ground then started trembling, made the walls of the room wobble and the small furniture dance up and down in the air like they were on a trampoline. Even Harry had to keep focus and balance himself to stand upright. “I swear to God. Fucking stop, Potter! What the fuck is this?”

“One of my methods of interrogation,” explained Harry “the guilty subject will be put in an environment influenced by uncontrollable magic to experience a constant fear of being hit by a flying object. They have no idea when they will be hit, or what will hit them. That's the whole spirit. It can’t be stop unless the subject tells the truth.”

“This is inhuman, Potter! Cruel, barbaric, inhuman method” yelled Malfoy when an unfashionable chandelier ungracefully crashed down beside them, its candles fell from the holder and rolled towards the two wizard, basking Malfoy’s distressing white face with an orange glow and casting deeper shadows to his traumatic eyes.

“Only you can stop it, Malfoy” Harry said, looking down at Malfoy in the position of a terrorized worshipper and trying to avoid a stray peacock quill threatening to poke his eye out. He must lecture the irresponsible Aurors about littering stationeries in his classroom. They were the hardest ones to control. “Speak the words, and it’ll stop.”

“No!”

“Then we stay here.”

“Fuck you. It’s none of your business. You fucking bastard of an alpha can’t force me to do anything.” Malfoy roared then, his voice shook with fury and his face crumbled in rage.

Only when he found himself in the middle of a massive bedlam did Harry acknowledge the reverence in the importance of analytical thinking. Like only when his godfather ran into the Death Chamber with a defiant fearlessness in his eyes did he knew that he was a reckless fool. Like only when his mad Sectumsempra spell ruthlessly slashed the body of his enemy did Harry realize that body was Malfoy.

And Malfoy was now kneeling defeatedly in front of him, his trembling shoulders and the solid existence of his fingers in Harry’s hands spoke cowardice, but Harry knew that Malfoy was always a coward with a reason and without a choice.

Harry yanked Malfoy to his feet. “Malfoy, you aren’t forced to do anything” he said urgently. “If that’s what it seem like to you, I’m sorry. I’m wrong, I’m sorry. God, it’s just you that I’ve been worrying for days. I’m just worried that-” he stopped to spell out a nonverbal and destroyed a chair that was aiming at them. He almost failed to pull up a Protego when suddenly his front was full of Malfoy, and there were arms looped under his and hands were rested on his shoulders, pulling him down as if for a coy confession or for a stealthy kiss.

Then Malfoy breathed into his ear the forbidden magic words that made the ongoing war around them forfeit. They heard the sharp clink of chalks raining down the floor, the heavy thump of the wooden desks falling like exhausted creatures, the perennial rumble of a weakening earthquake that they can still feel under their feet. But before they can distinguish the beats of their hearts,  like when one’s brain can be suddenly conscious of the faint tick tock of a clock, Harry whispered, in the same secretive way with which Malfoy had begun: “Now?”

Then Malfoy jerked away and the magical trance was gone, leaving Harry confused and bereft as though an antidote for Amortentia was forced down his throat when he didn't want the passion of his potion induction to go away.

“No, stupid Scarhead. I have it days ago!” Malfoy said, his surly sneer cut the inside of Harry’s ear like another wake-up call. It was quite effective, Harry can recover and fight that hostile tone anytime.

“Was that why you weren’t here? Why didn’t you just fucking tell me then, Malfoy?” Harry said petulantly. He didn’t care that he was half-shouting.

“Because, dimwit, no fucking omega ever mention their _heat_ to anybody. Don’t you know anything about manner?”

“Hermione tells Ron all the time!”

“Because she has someone to tell, doesn’t she? The Weasel will be there, won't he?” Malfoy yelled and finally looked at Harry for the first time since they arrive at the classroom. Harry thought his grey eyes were shrieking, like the wintry wind morosely cried through a crack of the window, but he couldn’t tell what they were trying to say.

The grave silence remained unceasingly long but still Harry couldn’t gather one single piece of courage to speak.

“I’ve enough, I’m leaving. I hate you, Potter. I fucking hate you. Stay the fuck away from me” Malfoy said and left, again taking with him his aromatic intoxication, his intelligible eyes, and his vulnerable desolation that was ripped apart by Harry Potter.

“Hating is not a pretty habit, Malfoy,” said Harry to the retreating shadow “give me a fucking chance, you selfish prick.”

He almost ran after Malfoy.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It basically involves with lots of swearing, a very fat cat, and close-but-not-quite-there-yet pining!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest thing I've written so far, and to be honest it's a hell of pain in the ass to edit. Please don't mind my constant editing, because I always find like a ton of mistakes after posting and I don't know why. And it's because of 'Good Will Hunting' that I'm getting the hot for Boston accent, so Rosita is now a Bostonian lol. It was so fun writing her dialogue, I can't stop. 
> 
> Anyway, have fun reading!

How he had managed to function on automatic mode for the last four days of the week, without having any recollection of whatever he had done, Harry didn't have a clue. He knew that he had Apparated to work and passed by the squinty-eyed lady in the Chinese herb shop every morning, and had had three meals at the restaurant of the hotel and flirted listlessly with Gino the Waiter every day. Yet, Harry’s whole week remained as dull as a series of Muggle commercial, to which attention was seldom paid.

His memory had stopped recording what he’d seen. For instance, he knew that he had walked the Stephen Avenue the day before, but as he came back again, it now greeted him with an unprecedented, cold welcome. Rows and rows of ancient architecture who had the Greek Ionic columns topped with intricate volutes that Harry had once admired, now all appeared to be insipid and old and uninteresting. They loomed over and looked down at his twenty-eight years old life with a disdain of condescension. The golden lighted shops and the buzzing pedestrians all appeared to be cluttered together, and seemed to mock him and alienated him, deeming him an outsider with a hostile apathy, of which he had never imagined to be afraid again ever since he had left number 4 Privet Drive. Harry had once longed to walk the street without being coddled by his friends and mobbed by strangers, but that had changed when he was in Saigon last year for his third project. The wizard remembered standing in the middle of the street with the other tourists, fascinated by the redundancy of colourful scooters frantically pouring out onto the street like a thousand busy ants when the traffic light went green.

Then suddenly, he had felt so alone.

Seeing the intimacy of the Vietnamese Muggles latching together on a skinny vehicle had strangely reminded him a sense of detachment, and had stirred him to floo Ron and Hermione, or anyone of his friends. Even when it was a year ago, Harry could never forget that terrifying feeling of desolation.

And now standing in another foreign street crowded with chatty, convivial strangers whose conversations he could not follow, Harry felt again the same desperation for a company, for someone whom he could ask how their day was and they would just simply return the polite gesture. Harry silently laughed at his pathetic self, who had many faceless admirers invited him to lunch, but had no person whom he could just spontaneously drag out for a simple take-out.

Nonetheless, he told himself that he was fine, and that the adventures in new places were best to proceed on his own. And so, alone Harry went to a little eatery called ‘Al-Quds Kebab House & Cafe’ and got himself an oversized beef shawarma, then claimed a bench in the Centuries Park as the sky was forewarning a damp afternoon. Sitting opposite him was a greenish bronze statue of a man with a cigar bitten in the corner of his mouth. His shoulders were hunched and a curled hand was placed at his left temple, both molded to the posture of a Hogwarts student who was trying to complete a passable Potions essay for Snape, but his furrowed brows was of a confused and perplexed third year looking at the tea dregs for clues in Divination. On the table between Harry and the statue was an uncompleted chess match, which sadly reminded Harry how much he missed best mate. He immediately chased this sudden effect to the back of his head, and sullenly munched on his shawarma.

Ever since the incident of Harry’s reckless application of the ‘Hand Hold’ interrogative method on Malfoy, he had been slipping outside for lunch, lest he would see Malfoy prancing about again. He felt awfully ashamed and guilty, for he knew he had falsely accused the blond of being a coward, and had put Malfoy into a circumstance that gave him no choice but to confess what really wasn't supposed to be told. But Merlin, who would’ve thought that the git was having his heat! And so stupid and moronic did Harry curse himself, too, as he was lamenting why on Snape’s grossly greasy head did he not think of that bloody possibility in the first place. He was very relieved that he was no longer an Auror, he would’ve had a very shitty record in investigating by now.

Sitting under a gloomy weather with a frowning statue for a friend and a rolling, unpleasant emotion in his stomach, Harry forgot the dry shawarma, and reassured himself that he was fine.

To cope with his mood, Harry decided to launch into reverie. His eyes followed the details on the bronze man’s vest, and wondered how much time it had took the sculptor to make every metal details of the crisscrosses. He listened to the conceited laughter that resonated from a group of young, tawdry girls in hoop earrings and leopard-patterned shoes, and wondered why he had already seemed to be so boring while only being in his late twenties. Nearby, some people stood up their easels facing the mass of buildings beside the park, and was ostentiously and flourishingly slapping paints on their canvases. Harry wondered what beauty did they find on this sunless day.

Then Harry sensed a familiar smell which belonged to whom he couldn't quite recall. The owner of it was advancing quite stealthily but clumsily, and he didn't know whether to be extra cautious or not. Then when they pounced on Harry and yelled ‘ _boo!_ ’, Harry had to battle with his instinct to not swat his arm at the assailant.  

“British guy! Remembah me?” happily said a girl with puffy hair that was on border an afro. She was smiling like she had successfully stolen the cream from a cat. Harry took one look at the pretty face and the massive cloud of brunette hair, and decluttered his brain for the person who possessed a touch of Boston crook in her accent that he had met recently.  

“Rosita? The canoe girl?” said Harry, a little reluctantly.

“Aw, smarht. I thought if you didn't wanna give me ya numbah, you wouldn't remembah.” He didn't, but had he not the ability to pick up people's scent, he wouldn't be able to know that they had met before.

“Now, how could I forget such an attractive one like you” he smiled, pleased that she preened prettily.

“All of yuh flirting sucks now, aftah that fancy play you’ve given me day we met, man” said Rosita. “But keep ‘em coming.”

Harry laughed. Rosita had no idea how grateful he was that she had found him.

“Anyway, ya sitting at ‘The Winnah’ statue and ruining its aesthetic value. I’ve eavesdropped some dudes ovah theah. They wanna sketch it but none have the balls to go and ask you to fuck off, so heah I am” said she.

“But I’ve got this impression that both my sandwich and I here are contributing immensely to the statue’s aesthetic value” said Harry amusedly.

“Yeah, very,” laughed Rosita “with shredded lettuce raining down ya pants. No, I’m kidding, it’s hanging on the side of yuh mouth. There, on the left side, up. Theah you go. You now look like a decent, hyped-up beef just fresh outta the gym” she smirked playfully.

Harry was quite confused with her odd statement, but he eventually got on. “Are you implying that I’m the stereotypical image of a muscle-head that is made of all meat and no brain?” said he.

Rosita seemed to be quite impressed “my Gawd, I can’t believe you get my insightful metaphor!”

It was Harry who laughed this time “um, sorry, but it is sort of rubbish.”

“Hey! I know that. It’s because it sucks, right, so that no one evah unduhstand my wicked wisdom and wit. I can insult people whenevah I want. No one will be offended if I'm the only one who gets it. See?” said the brunette, grinning. “But you actually did, so I think we ah meant to be, even though ya as gay as a flamingo.”

“Oi, I’m bisexual. But worry not, you aren't my type” said Harry, and snorted when Rosita mocked a pout.

“Must a girl be denied by her own walking wet dream?” Harry couldn’t help but barked an embarrassed laugh at her disappointed sigh. “By the way, give a name, eh? No physical intercoahse is fine, as long as we stay forevah star-crossed lovuhs.”

“Call me Harry” the wizard said.

“Such like Harrion? Harrison? No? Why, I thought ya British lot called yuh kids wee-id, snooty names. Like my neighbah Draco calls his kid Scorpius like so” said Rosita amusingly. She didn't notice a subtle flare of realization in Harry's eyes. “Got a numbah? Last time you ran away, now hand it ovah. Milos doesn't relent when I beat him up to spill.”

Harry shrugged “sorry, but I haven't a cell yet.”

“What? Come on, man. It's 2008, everyone has a phone. Especially hot ones” complaint Rosita.

“Then, does your neighbour have one?” said Harry cautiously, he will not appear to be too interested in Malfoy’s basic skills of civilizing in the Muggle world.

“Yeah, but he sucks at using it. Why do you ask?”

“Do you want to come with me now and help me buy one? Since you're an expert about phone and all” Harry said to quickly digress away, and decided at once to get the bloody device. If Malfoy had one, why hadn't he? But the brunette’s eyebrow gave a twitch that stirred in Harry a sense of apprehension of whether suspicion or rejection, he wasn't so certain.

“Oh, what was that? A date, I hear?” said the girl with an easy, smug grin that drew a silent sigh of relief from Harry.

“Wouldn't be if you say no.”

“Then gimme your shawahma, Harry, no date evah go well for a girl without paid food.”

After Rosita had done nibbling on his lunch, Harry followed the happy brunette with her arm looped in his. When the weather finally gave away and cried fat tears of rain, Rosita, surprising her wizard companion, took out a wand and worked an Umbrella spell over them.

“Wait, you're not a Muggle!?” Harry said astonishingly. Rosita just looked at him and frowned.

“Muggie what?”

“No magic people. You have magic!”

“Oh. You mean No-Maj, man, you sound like Draco. Yeah, I have magic. What of it?”

“I thought you didn't,” said Harry “hold on, why do you even need to ask for my name, then?”

The witch just laughed “I didn't know you ah so vain. Who do you think you ah? I asked because you ran away with Milos and Draco the day we met and didn't even look back once, of coahse.”

Sometimes, Harry did chide himself for his hasty caution with the people who had not been there at the war. The British wizarding world had trained him to be so conscious of his menace of a famous name. “Oh,” he said sheepishly “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, took yuh subs earliah for a reason.”

“Wait, does Milos have magic, too?” asked Harry.

“Nah, Draco's boyfriend’s a full No-Maj, we doan use magic around him. Guess that's why you didn't know about me.”

“You did take me for a surprise.”

“Uh huh. Now, do you have more interests in me when I'm a witch then, eh?” said the brunette, smiling with salacious lips.

“Mal-Draco mentioned you have a Muggle boyfriend in Canmore?” said Harry, then he immediately launched into panic mode when Rosita’s gleeful face was shadowed over by a forlorn cloud.

“Naw, he broke up with me just two days ago” she sighed. “Said he couldn't unduhstand the nawnsense of magic that breaks the law of gravity and such when I did a Leviosa to come true to him. He toll me I’m a lunatic, then, what wazit, a wee-id, facking fraud. Man, I thought two years and a half being together would’ve been okay to tell him, but I guess not. I was so pissed I pounded an Obliviate to the fuckah’s head.”

“You breached the Statue of Secrecy?” asked Harry incredulously.

“Well, I doan have a choice, he was practically freaking the fuck out and threatened to call the police, so I gotta do it. Then I called Draco for help and he was like ‘throw the little bitch’s ass into the dumpstah and walk away’. And I almost did, but I thought that seemed so obvious a scene, so I just left him theah in his house. But I still feel so shitty latah, ya know.”

Harry was amazingly incompetent when dealing with his own internal turmoils, but his heart would always be ready to sympathize with any voice that was croaked with dejection and sorrow, however his mind wanted to laugh at Malfoy’s classic attitude when dealing with unpleasant people. So, speaking in his soft, brassy tone, which he would always use when Hermione was frustrated or Ginny was stubborn, he told the morose witch that he was terribly sorry, and asked if she would like to go on a real date with him, so it wouldn't seem like he was rubbish at comforting women.

It was always a reward when the person whom he tried to cheer laughed. “Reelly, I thought I’m nawt your type. Doan look guilty, I’m kidding. Yeah, thanks. Sorry, it just happened recently so I’m still a bit mopey about it” said Rosita, and Harry watched the witch look up to the cloudy sky and force the wetness in her eyes back into her head with a silent admiration for her resilience.

“It’s alright. It just happened to me, too. A week ago, in fact” said Harry, smiling sadly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, too, then. Was she as pretty as you?”

“Quite fit, independent, redhead, plays Quidditch for a living.”

“Mine’s oldah, wickedly romantic, strawbeahry blond, writes fantasy and children's novels. See why I saw some ironic potential?” the witch grinned. “I suggest we hug it out.”

“You just want an excuse to molest me” laughed Harry, but he gathered the giggling brunette into his arms and gave her a brotherly squeeze anyway.

“But it didn’t last fuh even a minute! Hey, watch the hair. I know what yer doing, no hair touching!” Rosita protested when Harry tried to purposefully compensate with a ruffle on her fluffy head.

Harry and Rosita continued on their way through downtown while describing and telling stories about their respective exes to each other. If anyone cared to look, they would’ve seemed like a couple of old friends strolling down the street and ranting amiably in the mist of rain, both with their clothes strangely remaining dry. Their chat was gradually easing to personal aspects when they were closer to Chinatown.

“Heah people doan reely care about blood purity much. As long as you pay taxes for the whole wizarding health care thing, you’ll be good” said Rosita. “I’m a half. Mawther’s a witch and dad’s a No-Maj. She moved here with him when they got married. But they divoahced when ma toll dad about magic, cuz he saw me doing accidental magic when I was two. They still act friendly, but I know ma and I still scare the shit outta dad when she Apparated us to visit him. He was pretty bullsh when Jo, my half-sistuh, wanna go live with me this summah.”

Harry nodded. “Yes, I didn’t get along with my Muggle relatives either,” he said “they were afraid of me.” He just told her a tidbit of many secrets of his life with a flippant air, but something in his eyes told the witch that she really shouldn't ask him to elaborate.

“Sad that No-Majs evah want to accept us magical ones,” said Rosita, tactfully changed the topic chat while still staying relevant “imagine that we could learn their ways and they could call for our help.”

“That wouldn't work, you know,” said Harry “they would feel like they're the ones who don't have the control over power, then it’ll easily turn into jealousy and hatred, like witch hunts back in the days. And not to mention personal beliefs on our magical side. I don't know if you lot here is alright with Muggles, but in my country I’ve fought through a war ten years ago against an ideology of Muggles being worthless and Muggleborns more so, just because they dare to come to and defile the wizarding world.”

“Is it the one wheah the Light hero is Pottah and the Dahk leadah was Voldahmawrt?

“Yes. That's the one. The Second Wizarding War.”

“Well, I doan know about what was goin’ on in the UK. War news were only stories my ma was talking with her friends. Was it tough, being in a war?”

Harry only smiled. He wondered if Malfoy had been right all along about the younger generation becoming uninformed adults in this peaceful world that he had bled, had killed, and had died to save.

“How old are you, Rosita?” said Harry.

“Nineteen in August. Why?”

“Just want to know how old you are to be so naïve” smiled Harry.

“And that doesn't offend me at all,” she laughed “I’m nawt. What I meant wasn't so fackin’ cynical and wide-ranged world business like yuh sad explanation that old people ah dying to give. I only meant that if a Muggle or a wizard or a witch could find more than power, or the lack theahof, in a persun they love, and would be willing to continue to love despite the diffuhrences, that would be nice” said Rosita.

“Yes, it would be. But love isn't the only thing we know about, Rosita” Harry said “I think we have a lot more emotions than love. More of the uglier ones.”

“Doan let yuh ass suits the name I just picked fawr ya: fackin’ bitter single old man.”

Harry couldn't help but laughed.

When they reached the Chinatown area, Rosita motioned him to follow her into a little dingy Asian mall that had a frozen escalator and round, red lanterns dangling from the ceiling. Over their heads was an open second floor shielded by red balustrades, whose body was a work of seamless, geometric maze of squares intertwined with each other; under their shoes, the floor was tiled with a pattern of an assemble of muted red and green mosaic. All shops seemed to be open, with white fluorescent light pouring out from the glass displaying cases, but there were hardly any customers around except for a group of teenagers loitering in an anime merchandise store. Rosita and Harry passed by a bridal shop, another Japanese and Korean culture store, two DVD rental shops, and reached an extremely small establishment in the corner at the end of the mall. Before Harry could voice his thoughts, Rosita was already explaining: “Yer a tourist so you won't be heah long. No need for an overpriced mobile phone. Anything you want to get it cheap you go heah, the Chinese knows how to make their regulahs come back. And I know Lan, so you won't get tricked or ripped awff because of ya cute pup face.”

Harry wanted to tell her that his face could be very intimidating, thanks, but Rosita had already crept her way into the shop. Bless her and her slender figure, for Harry’s broad frame now seemed to be quite bulky as he was stuck half-way through the long and narrow walls. He gave the money, and told Rosita to buy whatever phone she thought was easy to use, and waited outside. She bargained and bought him an Iphone 1st Generation.

“Rosita, this is not an ‘easy to use’ phone!” he complaint “I thought you'd get a disposable one.”

“But Harry, you can play games on this nizza looking thing! Look! Bejeweled Blizt, Sodoku! I always wanted one” protested Rosita.

“You just completely got lured by the vendor, and you just want to borrow it” he sighed.

“Smahrt boy” grinned Rosita “now give me ya damn numbah.”

Rosita had a good time punching in her own number into Harry's phone, and looked even more excited when her own phone rung with Harry's call.

“Heah, have Milos’. He has been cawnstantly whining that his new _amigo’_ s fawgotten about him. Call him and shut him up, will you. And tell him tah go fack ‘imself” said Rosita, punching in Milo’s number onto Harry’s touch phone. “Want Draco’s, too? Though he has this wee-id habit of fawgetting his phone all the time.”

Harry tried not to seem too eager saying yes, and acted casual by watching a lady stuffing colourful, thick straws into a plastic pencil holder at a bubble tea shop.

“Theah, all done. Now you might not want ta call Milos because he’s annoying as fuck, nor Draco because he sucks, but call me, eh?” Harry was very amused when he saw the contact names: ‘Rosie <3’, and Milos’ ‘SloppyTacoBell’, but almost whooped when he read Malfoy’s ‘BlondieWithWickedAss’. Apparently, he was not the only one ogling below Malfoy’s waist. Rosita was a wonderful mouthy brat of a partner in crime.  

When the witch asked him to continue their little date at her home because it was her turn to cook for Feeding Friday with her group of friends, Harry had to drop the question that if her neighbour and his boyfriend would also be joining them.

“Of coahse they will. Theah’ll be them, Draco's soulmate, Lan, no it’s an inside joke, she’s his Potion ingredient providah. And the two kids, Scorp and Jo. It was Draco's burnt udon last week, so I gotta save the day tonight, or else he will definitely lose some friends” said Rosita with a pompous huff while Harry was failing to hide his snicker. The imagination of a sight of Draco Malfoy, the stuck-up prodigy and prized student of the most meticulous Potions professor in Hogwarts, scowling while scraping away the black, coal-like noodles in the pan, was too hilarious to not find delight in it. Although the tension between the blond and Harry had yet subsided, he would rather face it than spend the night alone in his little room back in Okotoks. He wanted to hang about with Malfoy’s new friends, so Malfoy’ll be damned, Harry will be coming for the home-cooked food and the good company. He said yes to Rosita.

Rosita then dragged him to a nearby Superstore and made him maneuver a cart full of bacon, minced beef, lettuce, Red Leicester cheese, and a load of vegetables for her Ultimate Cheeseburgers. When Harry asked why a simple cheeseburger would need so many ingredients, the witch only smirked and told him to shut up and see for himself at the dinner table. After she paid for the food and gave him all five, heavy plastic bags, he began to think that she only invited him so that he can be her personal delivery ass for the shopping trip. They then Apparated to an apartment building named Keynote Two on 11th Avenue and took the lift to the twenty-fifth floor. Only when Rosita pointed out the dark door with the shiny, golden number 2205, and said it was Draco’s while brutally knocking on the door of 2202, did Harry realize how much of a imposing prick he was for sauntering into Malfoy’s private life and mingling with his friends. But that was all forgotten when a mini Malfoy opened the door of Rosita’s apartment.

The astonished child stood still for a minute and stared at Harry with his round, grey eyes in a wondrous awe, then the solemnity of the reuniting moment was completely gone when Scorpius’ memory registered that Harry was one his favourite persons in the world.

“HARRY!” screamed the little blond in his utmost elation with his short arms threw up in sky, and blindly tackled Harry’s legs with a hug that could cut off the poor blood circulation of his victim. His face pressed tight against the adult’s knees, while his mouth was running a jumble of cheers and joy. “Harry! Hi, Harry! JO, LOOK! IT’S HARRY! I told you he’s real!” Harry was suddenly reminded of his young Teddy before he was too embarrassed to show any affection to his godfather. How dearly Harry was missing those days when someone was very happy to see him.

The big, manly alpha wizard gingerly picked up the squirming little bugger off his leg and into his arms, then grinned his widest smile. Scorpius’s tiny, boyish mouth copied Harry’s, and the happy wizard couldn't help but wanting to show off their moment, so he turned to everyone in the room. There was Rosita smiling exasperatingly but fondly at them, and Milos’ sprawling on the sofa with an excitement to see his friend again, and, to Harry's surprise, the Chinese old lady, who owned the herb shop that he usually passed by on the way to work, looking quite tranquil about Scorpius’ ruckus at dinner time and waving her fuchsia fan. But when his sight went over the kitchen area and landed on a man whose arms were crossed and whose pinched expression was all except a pleasant welcome, his smile faltered. It was strange that one cold look from a particular omega could make Harry felt immediately insecure, as if his presence was completely deplorable and unwanted. Then Harry realized that it wasn't so incomprehensible, the bloody omega was Draco Malfoy, after all.

“Are you really Harry? Scorp said you’re nice, but you dunn look like it” said a very snobby, childish voice that made Harry break the fleeting connection with Malfoy and look down. A little girl about ten or eleven of age with two black ink pigtails and dark eyes like Rosita’s was staring disdainfully at him.

“Jo, propahly and politely introduce ya self to Harry, or you woan get dessert” chided Rosita, and the petulant child mumbled something sounded like “Jovanna, hi” then ran away with her hair bouncing about like ears of a shy lop bunny and hid behind Malfoy’s long legs. She definitely didn't forget to give a distrustful glare, which mirrored so perfectly with the one on Malfoy’s face that it made Harry clutch Scorpius harder and try not to laugh. He somehow knew Jo and Malfoy wouldn't appreciate his happy spirit, for their faces looked like they were in the most dangerously reactive state.

“Um, hello Jovanna,” said Harry while smiling his best “can I call you Jo?”

It took a minute for the girl to gave Harry a stiff nod, with half of her head still hiding behind Malfoy and hands gripped tight on his, surprisingly to Harry, lounging bottoms. Harry had never thought Malfoy was capable of being comfortable.

“Aw, you were so excited to meet Harry, Jo. What happened? Are you shy? Wanna give him a kiss? Hm?” with his lips perking a grotesque, octopus-like shape, Milos teased Jo with a squelching ‘smooooch’. Unbeknownst to Milos, he was the very cause of Jo’s horrible incoming tantrum, and was whom his boyfriend would completely refuse to have sex with for a week later. No one was ready when Jo took out her fiery temper by belligerently stomping her feet and yanking down on Malfoy’s bottoms.

Had Malfoy not been wearing a loose, long shirt, Harry would've been able to know the colour of Malfoy’s pants of the day. But his brain inappropriately deduced that it was Slytherin green anyway, and he would be corrected by his gorgeous husband later in life that it was, in fact, candy apple red and a thong.

“MILOS!” screamed a furious Malfoy when everyone, except the Latino and the little girl, was in hysterics. The blond then turned to no one in particular, and said “I SWEAR TO GOD! STOP LAUGHING!” and belatedly realized that it only added more fuel to the unceasing cackles.

“Um Dreico, you want to, er, pull up your pants? I think I’m getting a bit uncomfortable. With you showing off and all” Harry fancied the idea that Milos would've been a mate in Gryffindor for his nonchalant bravery, because Malfoy’s grim expression appeared to be contemplating whether to strangle the man, or to cut him with deadly glares to his demise, and the Latin man just looked bloody amused. The blond seemed to choose the latter, as he was beginning to paint his face to a blank canvas that knew not one bit of emotion, and casually pulled up his garment.

“I’m sorry, Draco! I didn't mean to” cried little Jo, who looked as terrified as a scaredy sheep that had been waiting for its slaughter. Harry was about to intervene when he sensed such distress from the girl, but much to the his surprise, Malfoy only sighed and knelt down to pinch the flushed, wet cheeks of Jo, and said “It’s alright. Just cut holes in all of Milos’ underwears while he’s asleep for me, yes?”

It seemed that poor Milos was the only one who didn't find humour in that statement.

The excitement of the Friday evening became as frantic as it could get in the tiny kitchen of Rosita’s modest apartment. Because the space couldn't hold more than three persons at the same time, Lan, who had been the epitome of tranquillity during the previous mayhem, moved to stand beside the counter and took on the role of the meanest executive chef. A point of her finger could send the insubordinate children out of the way. Her mere stern shake of the head could replace a vocal reprimand when someone (mostly Malfoy) had done her wrong. Her judging eyes will glance at the door, and the person who had been cocking up the most will see automatically himself out with the little ones (only Malfoy). Harry was beginning to get the joke of Lan being Malfoy’s soulmate. They seemed to be ridiculously fastidious, for the old herb shop lady shown no compassion and allowed no mistake on the ground that was her kitchen.

Harry felt that he was definitely being watched when his onion rings were a half-centimeter thicker, but he took pride in the fact that he was quite efficient with the chopping vegetables task and that he was still being able to stay in the kitchen, unlike prissy Malfoy who couldn't even toast the burger buns. He could sense annoyance and envy radiating from Malfoy that was boring into his back, so when nobody was looking, he turned smirked complacently at the blond.

Then Malfoy, as though he had been plotting Harry’s failure, surprised him immensely by doing the most un-Malfoy thing he had ever seen. Malfoy stuck out his tongue and blew loud a raspberry.

Harry _almost_ chopped his bloody fingernail off.

But the skin on the joint of the middle finger was scratch and he bled all over the stupid onions anyway, so the alpha wizard had no choice but to grudgingly join Malfoy and the kids after receiving a look of pure disapproval from the mean-eyed old lady.

“Malfoy, you git!” said Harry while showing his bleeding hand to Malfoy, as though to guilt-trip to blond for an apology.

Malfoy only smirked, and it rankled Harry to the core because it was the very same smirk that he himself had used earlier. A little triumph and a lot of smugness.

“I swear to Gordic, you tried to murder me” muttered Harry while fumbling with a bandaid with his good hand.

“How crude. You cut yourself, so don't blame me. My hands are clean” whispered a snickering Malfoy while showing his white hands to make a point. The two adult clearly didn't want Jo and Scorpius to listen about their boyish, volatile chat.

“Should’ve known at twenty-eight you still act like an eleven years old brat,” Harry vehemently whispered back “damn cute you were, Ferret.”

“Oh, shut up. I helped you not to look so cocky. And give me the bloody bandaid, you clumsy berk. You’ve been fussing with it for eternity that even I get bored watching you being so fucking incompetent. There. Done. You're welcome.”

Harry took some seconds to admire the band wrapped around his middle digit. He must admit it was quite neat, and must refuse to be conscious of the effect of Malfoy’s touch on his skin. “Thanks” he said.

“Now, what are you doing here, Potter? Wasn't the scene you made at work enough to antagonize me? Stalking about like our sixth year, aren't you?” Harry wished Malfoy would have enough courtesy to keep unpleasant topics for after supper. It didn't work.

“It’s not me, Rosita dragged me here. And, er, Malfoy, um…I’m…”

Harry’s attempt for an apology was cut off when Milos emerged from the kitchen and strolled towards them. The Latin man gave Harry a sympathizing pat on the shoulders, and told him he was quite put out when Harry didn't call, and that Harry must inspect about the bar avenue with him on Tuesday. Malfoy just pouted:

“You’re so fond of him, why don't you just go and date him, hm?”

Milos only laughed and bent down to peck Malfoy on the mouth. It was too disgustingly sweet for Harry’s taste of affection, until the oblivious Milos made a fatal mistake of telling the blond “Harry and I gonna go and do the manly men’s business” when Malfoy asked to come along.

“Are you telling me that I’m not masculine enough to join?” said Malfoy in a light voice.

“Well, we’re gonna go to a pub and drink. It's not like you could bring your kid along, amor mío” said Milos.

“It’s because I have my son, I’m not apt to be manly enough to go out, am I?”

“That's not what I mean, Dreico. You know there will be my guys from work at the bar where I’m taking Harry. And you can't drink, you have Scorp to look after.”

A problem about Milos was that he was too genuinely practical, Harry noticed. He seemed like a man of logical efficiency and doing what was necessary at work and remained so at home; for he might've thought he was just only explaining to his boyfriend what would be good for him. He knew not that Malfoy was having unsettling feelings, judging by the slightest frown on the blond’s mask of imperturbation. Harry mused that it wasn't Milos’ fault that he appeared to be insensitive, but it was Malfoy who was too talented at hiding his internal brew of turmoil.

“We can go as friends, Milos. And I have you know that I am quite well-trained at handling heavy liquors. You remember when I kicked your arse at the Tequila Tournament years ago?” Malfoy said, as Harry mentally took note about this particular fact, without thinking whether it was necessary or not, but things about Malfoy always came handy later on.

“Hey, it was because I drank starving. No one can beat a tequila drink off with a _Mexicano_ without cheating, babe.”

“No, I did _not_ cheat” Harry just knew the Slytherin wanker was lying straight through his teeth. “But this is irrelevant. I’m just as manly as you and Potty are.”

“Yes, yes you are,” smiled Milos indulgently “I’m just afraid you’re so pretty you will be eaten by my boy colleagues.”

“You’re being flippant about this.”

“Yes, I am. You’ll stay home with Scorpius anyway, it's not like you’re actually going.”

“Why are you taking my son as an excuse?” frowned Malfoy.

“Because it’s true. He’s your baby kid, not mine, and I know you're more responsible than to leave him home while you go bars from bars to have fun with the guys, Dreico.” A fleeting flash of anguish in Malfoy’s eyes went unnoticed by Milos, but it didn’t escape the green eyes of the Gryffindor Seeker.

“Well, off you go to the kitchen, Mil. I think Lan is trying use telekinesis to throw you into the frying pan” Malfoy quickly said and sent Milos back to work with a laugh.

“We should set the table, Potter.”

Trust Malfoy to manage and make the sole task of putting plates and cutlery on the table to become infuriatingly vexing. Harry had been called a variety of nasty things - for he still couldn’t please everybody even if he was a war hero - but he had never felt so insulted in his adult life until he met Malfoy again. Maybe it was Malfoy’s creative use of vibrant adjectives and insightful nouns, or maybe it was just _Malfoy_. Many would’ve given Harry a lot of credits for his understanding that Malfoy was just overly upset at something his boyfriend had said, and, particularly, for his volunteering to be the dartboard for the incessant belittlement of the blond. At least Malfoy had the decency to remain an adept adult and whispered through it all with the children in the house.

“Potter! The knives, Potter! The knives are supposed to be on the _right._ Unless your stupid, stupid fucking arse of a bloody wankstain assumes that left handedness is an inherited dominant fucking trait, I will be happy to send you right to bed with Lockhart for fucking good” Malfoy hissed.

“Fucking hell, Potter. Don’t you know how to _fold_ a napkin? It's the useless, colossal idiots like you that I must _un-_ fucking _-fold_ your damn brain that’s a size of a fucking gain of salt for it to function properly. Fold it again, shitty potty head.”

“I swear to God, you moronic, rotten-headed son of a cockwomble! How many times do I have to tell you? See this pretty little pink chicken printed on the plate? It goes on the fucking _bottom_. Chickens fucking walk, Potter, not fucking fly upside down, eh? Worthless fucking fuckwit.”

Harry only chuckled.

“Malfoy.”

“What?”

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“Why?”

“Because you are _such_ a fucking _cock!_ Even your own fucking kind of cock can’t fucking stand you, so for fuck’s sake _shut the fuck up!_ ”

Only a few pitiful seconds of quietness was served as a reward for Harry’s fierce fighting spirit. Because Malfoy just randomly bursted out laughing and ruined it all.

No, Harry did not want to see Malfoy’s cheeks illuminated by flushing mirth, nor to hear Malfoy’s melodious laughter sang the brightest notes of amusement, no thank you. A beggar would rather stay starving than to know once the mere impression of being full, and Harry would rather had nothing to desire than to desire something that was unattainable. He knew that Malfoy’s touch, temper, and laughter weren’t his to cherish, so Harry would like to have those few seconds of peaceful ignorance back.

The blond was hiccuping the last round of the guffaw when Rosita poked her curious head out from the kitchen to ask what was so funny. Harry’s list of ‘Thou Shalt Not Covet’ things had an unwelcome addition of an insidious smile that carried a secret of which no one but Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy would know.

But Harry forgot about it for a while. After all, he was still a lowly amateur to this new aspect of Malfoy, who had always been full of surprises that were unceasingly providing Harry with more and more anticipation. Harry told himself that, unlike sixth year at Hogwarts, this was not an obsession, but a scientific observation of this odd Malfoy. Harry was so very keen to study this strange personality mutation. So he kept a watchful eye on the blond, who was ignoring the silver utensils over which he had agonized Harry only a few moments ago, and was biting unceremoniously into Rosita’s massive Ultimate Cheeseburger. There was messy sauce trickling down the long fingers and clinging on the corner of a pink mouth, and a light chuckle at Milos’ declaration of ‘there is no such thing as a polite burger!’. Harry studiously took mental notes of them all.

Harry also forgot about the list as he told his new group of friends, in which minus Malfoy, stories of the times he was traveling around the Earth. He told them about the horridly boiling temperature of Thailand and Vietnam and India and the fascination of the architecture of their ancient pagodas; about the courageous little surfers dominating the tyrant of gigantic blue waves of the Bahamas’ ocean; and won the children over with the tale about when a squirrel monkey had stolen his _copo -_ a sweet delight of shaved ice, condensed milk, powdered milk, and syrup - and had dumped it onto the head of a rude tour guide who really liked to hear himself talk on a trip at Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica. Malfoy even laughed openly at that, and who was Harry to say no to the chance of letting their past of bitter animosity to become a childhood memory, especially when Malfoy could be so bright when laughing, and was a wanker on only some occasions?

When all the burgers were long gone, the conversation was easing into a nap, and Rosita and Jo were finally bored with their guests’ blissful and satisfied faces, they shooed them away for the night. “Get awt so I can escape my skinny jeans. My stawmach needs some extra space” the mouthy big sister said, then gave a half-arsed wave and nonchalantly closed the door on her friends. Jo said goodnight to everyone, except to Harry she gave a reluctant wave of wiggling fingers. It was Lan who flicked her fan as a goodbye first, with a quick excuse that she had to open her shop early in the morning. Then it was Milos who reluctantly left after he had given Malfoy the tenth kiss on the mouth and many squeezes on the arse, and sent Harry numerous of bro-pats on the arms and a ton of endearments in Spanish. The only one left was Harry, whose leg Scorpius absolutely will not let go, until he could show him his all of his toys. Harry was glad that Malfoy, although still a git, was quite a softie of a doting parent. He let Harry walked through the door of 2205 with only one irritated huff, and Harry allowed himself to fancy that everything will be alright.

Until a massive lump of something leapt out from nowhere and landed neatly on his head. Harry barely managed to hold in an undignified yelp.  

However, Harry couldn’t stay half a second in indignation when the two Malfoys was laughing their arses off so freely like that. Maybe he was only a little petulant about being laughed at, but Harry pretended to be very cross anyway. “Stop your mischiefs and pranks, Malfoy meanies. Or else you will be left with no friend at all” said Harry, whose stealthy hands found a fluff of soft fur on his head.

“Aw, please don't be mad, Harry,” said Scorpius “it’s just Squishy!”

“Squish what?” Now Harry was very worry. Although he was an alpha and all,  it was still ridiculous for someone who was a once well-trained Auror to stroll casually into the snake's den like this. Malfoy apparently had some pity in his heart after all, for he ceased laughing to come and rescue Harry from the fate of being a very confused hostage by plucking the furry pillow off his head. But Malfoy’s amusing grin was not helping Harry's mood any bit.

“Potter, meet the handsome Mr. Sebastien Felinius Malfoy. You may use his intimate name of Squishy” introduced Malfoy with an air of poshness while presenting a very, very fat dark grey cat to Harry, who was retreating backwards as Malfoy moved the cat closer to him. The cat’s face appeared to be so unhappy Harry knew that he will go back to the hotel with some scars tonight.

“Check your vision, Malfoy. This is definitely a grumpy potato sack” Harry was quite pleased with Scorpius’ little giggles and the offended look on Malfoy’s face.

“How dare you. He’s a highly respected and generous noblecat, who is just having a very extravagant and liberating lifestyle” said Malfoy haughtily with his nose in the air.

“Put it down, Malfoy, you’ll break an arm lifting it for so long” said Harry.

“ _Him,_ Potter, and act polite” Malfoy sneered half-heartedly, but he did put the monstrous cat down onto the floor. Harry suspected it was because Malfoy’s arms were probably getting sore. The three humans watched in silent as the cat sauntered away, its voluptuous bum swaying rhythmically and seductively.

“How did you raise a Russian Blue to be so chubby?”

“Be a darling and don't body shame in front of him, he has quite a sensitive heart” whispered Malfoy.

“He gets really sad, so he eats even more!” the little blond copied his father and exclaimed in the same secretive, dramatic way.

The black-haired human snorted, and was shushed by his two companies of pale humans.

While Scorpius was dragging Harry around the apartment hunting for his toys, the adult wizard took the opportunity to observe around. Malfoy’s home had the same layout as Rosita’s, with an enormous window serving as an entire wall that from which Harry can watch the whole Calgary city hectically moving in the night, and a tiny kitchen space with dark wood for the countertop featured with a sink. Instead of Rosita’s large, round dinner table, in the middle of the room and in front of the wall window was a cozy living room, in which there were an L-shaped, aegean blue sofa that had two comfy, maroon pillows on it, two light grey squashy armchairs stood across from each other, and a small black wood coffee table laid on a fluffy, muted mustard rug which feet could possibly get lost in. In the corner of Rosita’s living room was a boxy a telly, whereas in Malfoy’s stood tall shelves that homed various kinds of books. Harry could see that they were mostly children stories and Muggle classic novels.

“It’s not much” Malfoy said, and looked expectantly at Harry as if he was waiting for a mockery.

“It’s nice,” said Harry “modern, neat,” but he could see that wasn't enough for Malfoy, so he added “well, it’s home, right?”

If Malfoy could smile like that whenever Harry said the right thing, Harry thought he would have to be more deliberate in responding to Malfoy.

“Right” said Malfoy, and he let Harry be pulled away by his excited son.

In his light lemon yellow bedroom that carried the vibe of a sunny summer, Scorpius proudly showed Harry everything that he owned. He was very fond of his humble collection of toys, from priceless scraps like old buttons and colourful bottle caps and broken crayons to boyish treasures like hot wheels and miniature soldiers and boxes of Lego and a train rail that was circling around his room and was bewitched to run on forever.

“But the best thing ever is somewhere else” Scorpius said, then made a ‘ _SHHHHH_ ’ noise very loudly through his teeth, and Harry had to hold in a laugh and nodded as if he was a Secret Keeper of this particular devious act. The mini Malfoy led Harry to another room, which seemed like a small office. “Wickeet isn't it, Harry?” Scorpius said.

Harry followed Scorpius’ tiny index finger and was absolutely amazed. There on the wall were at least a hundred figures of miniature guitar all cramped together, filling all the spaces from the cornice down to three quarter of the wall. Harry could recognize some bass guitars, double-neck guitars, flying V, jaguars, twelve strings, and many more about which he didn't even know they exist. He was craning his neck to study a red rectangular guitar when he heard a cough behind him.

Malfoy stood in the doorway with Squishy drape over his shoulders and two steaming cups in hand, his face bore an annoyed resignation when he looked down to regard his son.

“Scorpius, what did I tell you about dragging guests about the house?” said Malfoy with a stern voice.

“Not to bring them into uncomfortable rooms that are eenaporiet for guests, father” Scorpius seemed to be parroting along a voice in his head, and Malfoy corrected the little blond with ‘inappropriate’ and confirmed that it was so. “But Harry's tough, father. You don't feel uncomfortable, do you Harry?”

Because his P.M.S classes were full with matured adult, Harry rarely had any chance at all to impress a child of five years old. So when an adorable one who stared up at him in awe admiration and deemed him to be strong, he would be very happy to gloat about it.

“Yes, Scorpius. I’m quite strong, indeed. And look at what I can do” Harry proceed to lift little Scorpius up into a hug and held him tight, then, without any warning, performed a clumsy ballerina twirl on the spot in Malfoy’s office. They were the only havoc in the otherwise orderly room, but Harry did try to not wreck anything of Malfoy, lest Malfoy would become the intolerable git again.

The bigger blond’s exclaim of sheer horror was overwhelmed by the little one’s screeching laughter, so it was only the worry expression on Malfoy’s face that made Harry stop.

“Again, Harry! Again! Spin me!” laughed Scorpius gleefully as he sat up properly in Harry's hold.

“Your father looked like he’s about to off my head for making a scene in his office, Scorp” said Harry, but he was watching Malfoy.

“Then we could do this in the living room!” the fearless little rascal said, and made his father raise his voice for the first time in the five years that they had been together.

“NO!” Malfoy hastily cried. “NO, YOU ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT!”

That perturbed Scorpius immensely, for he had only ever been taught with light-toned reminder and sternness, and had never been really harshly reprimanded, especially by his father’s fury.

No one could never pretend to not notice the fat tears in the big, grey eyes of the little blond in Harry’s arms, and the trembling petite hands that clenched on the shirt on Harry's chest. For a moment Harry was in very, very profound panic mode. How in the crack of Merlin’s arse could he handle not one, but _two_ bloody upset Malfoys at once? He would be quite glad to go back to his hotel now, thanks, but he just couldn't help but think that it was his stupid ego that had caused this. Lost in his anxious musing, Harry didn't even notice that Malfoy was advancing towards them, and only until Scorpius flinched against him did he realized that Malfoy had put down the cups of tea, and tried to take his son into his own arms. And before Harry could have enough time to process the look of heartache in Malfoy’s brooding grey eyes, the blond already made his move to envelope both the big alpha wizard and his darling child in his arms, flooding Harry's consciousness with the soft, soothing scent of an omega who was trying to calm his mate and cub.

The three of them stood there very still, but no one were as tense as they were before. Malfoy was breathing so gently his many apologies and promises to Scorpius that Harry had to strain his ears to be able to listen. And finally, a slight acceptant nod from Scorpius was awarded to Malfoy’s patience.

“Promise no yelling” sniffed the little blond and held out a tiny pinky to his father. Malfoy looked like he couldn't be more relieved.

“Swear to my death” smiled Malfoy, and eased away for there to be enough space to crook his long, elegant pinky finger with his son’s short and chubby one.

There was some strange emotion in Harry's heart that he completely couldn't decipher when looking down at the two bright blond heads resting on each other. It was so foreign that he was quite afraid of it, so he decided to put it in the back of his head to deal with it later.

Then Scorpius squirmed to his father, so Harry let Malfoy took the child away, and watched the father kissed his son on the nose. The big blond announced that it was time for bed, and turned to the direction of the door while carrying Scorpius. He didn't forget to signal for Harry to follow. Back they went to the lemon yellow room, with both Malfoys discussing tomorrow's to do list and the father Malfoy was still talking in whispers and soft tone. When Scorpius was safely tucked in his midnight blue blanket that was dotted with little stars and red rockets, he begged his father and Harry to tell him a bedtime story. Malfoy ordered Harry to go downstairs and pick up The Little Mermaid.

“Ah, thank you, Potter” said Malfoy when catching the book which Harry had chucked at him with a reflex of an everlasting instinct of a Seeker, much to Harry’s annoyance. “Now, would you like for me to start, then you read the next paragraph and so on?”

If anyone ever reminded Harry that reading a fairytale to Malfoy’s little heir with Malfoy himself was quite a peculiar thing to do, Harry would tell them to get over it. He settled himself to sit on the other side of the bed, across from Malfoy and beside Scorpius who was sandwiched between them.

“Far out at sea the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower and as clear as the purest glass, but it is very deep, deeper than any anchor cable can reach, many church towers would have to be placed on top of each other to stretch from the sea bed to the surface. Down there the sea-folk live” started Malfoy in an enthralling narrative voice, then gave the book to Harry to continue.

“Do not believe, though, that there is nothing but bare, white sand on the seabed…”

Together, Harry and Malfoy read through the whole story while Scorpius laid quietly with his eyes as bright as lamplight, listening raptly to every word of the fictional story. Harry began to imitate Malfoy’s dynamic use of tones, which laced with melancholy when the Little Mermaid came up to the surface and seeked for her beloved prince season by season, only to come home after and embrace longingly the marble statue that looked like the prince; and lowered dangerously when came the slimy, vile description of the sea-witch’s domain where her house of shipwrecked humans’ bones was built and where the horrible fat water snakes were swimming about.

Somewhere in the middle of the story, Squishy joined the rendezvous and curled up on the little blond’s tummy. But the cat disappeared when the climax of the story was approaching closer. Scorpius started sniffling softly at the Little Mermaid's sorrowful despondency when the prince had declared his love for the neighbouring princess whom he had thought his long-lost saviour, and making faint painful small noises when the Little Mermaid silently said goodbye to her prince and her short life on land, both which she had left her home and had sacrificed so many things for. When she flung herself into the ocean to turn into seafoam, the child bursted out crying and whimpering so pitifully that Malfoy had to crawl into the cover and hugged him close. Harry had to hastily rush through the ending in which the Little Mermaid was rewarded for her selfless love, and became one of the daughters of the air. The little blond then calmed down to soft, wet sighs when he heard the poor Little Mermaid will eventually gain her soul and will be able to sail to heaven in three hundred years of doing good deeds. And her time of probation will be shortened when a she found a child that gladdened its parents and earned their love.

“What about the prince, father? Will he ever know that Little Mermaid loves him very mach?” asked Scorpius at the end of the story and after a hiccup.

“I think he does know, the wind will kiss his forehead whenever the Little Mermaid come to visit. And I'm quite certain that he will think of her” Malfoy said when he climbed out of Scorpius bed. “Are you alright? Tired yet?”

“Yes, father” Scorpius answered with an opened mouth yawn and another hiccup, at which Malfoy smiled at.

“Well then, off to sleep you go. Be a good boy so that Little Mermaid’s probation will be shortened, yes?”

“Okay” said Scorpius and quickly ducked his bright blond head under the blanket and immediately shut his eyes. “Goodnight, father. Goodnight, Harry.”

“Goodnight, sweet prince.”

Harry watched Malfoy bend down to kiss the little forehead and wondered if that brief scene was from the fairy tale as well. He then followed Malfoy quietly out of the room and downstairs to the living room. Malfoy brought back the two forgotten tea cups and told Harry to spell it warm. Harry didn't ask why Malfoy didn't do it himself. They both sat on the couch and sipped the tea, their eyes and attention were watching the bars of tall building and the skinny column of the Calgary towers illuminated by window lights, and the red flashes of tiny shadows of cars moving to and fro in silence. It was quite a nice view, Harry thought, and said so.

Malfoy only hummed in agreement. The empty silence once again descended upon the two wizards.

“So, you will bear to lose him for his own happiness and turn into, what was it? A daughter of the air?” asked Harry, suddenly.

“Very funny Potter. The mermaid is a pitiful, naïve wreck, I’d kill the pretty little liar of a spoilt princess and get the stupid prince for myself if I’ve wasted that much effort chasing after his arse” Malfoy scoffed.

Harry smiled behind his tea, “now, that’s my Malfoy!” he exclaimed, then rolled his eyes when Malfoy smirked cockily.

“But why did you read him this version? You looked as distress as he was when he started sobbing, so why not a nice, happy tale from Disney version or something?” asked Harry.

When Malfoy sighed and sipped at his tea, Harry was starting to worry that he had just managed to ask the wrong question once again. But Malfoy answered him this time.

“You know that I’m an omega?”

The alpha was confused, but responded with the obvious anyway.

“Yes, and you can see that I’m a single parent” said Malfoy, and Harry answered another obvious fact.

“And you’ve witnessed Scorpius behaviour in my office?”

“Malfoy, just get to the point” huffed Harry.

The blond sighed again, only this time with an extra bit of exasperated drama. “Of course you don't get it. Why do I even hope for a thick-skulled moron like you to understand my personal plight?”

Apparently, Harry only needed to be patient, kept silent, and stared unblinking at Malfoy for him to relent. He should’ve done last week, the alpha wizard thought bitterly.

“Fine, Potter, since you're so dim, I shall have to be generous and give support to your limited intelligence. You see, as an omega, my instinct would never allow me to be tough on my children. That was why I was quite distressed when you swung my son about my office earlier. I think that because of my gentle nature - shut up Potter, it’s true - Scorpius has developed a fear of loud noises. I’m quite afraid that his confidence will struggle when he go out in the world, for he has not an alpha figure to show him how to be strong and hardy. So to unravel this issue, I’ve found a way to sneak around my instinct. I can't teach him strength, but I can teach him all about wit” Malfoy said. “This darker version of the story shows the children that things seldom follow expectations, but with perseverance of morals and patience, life will get on. I’m quite impressed with these kinds of Muggle children literature.”

Harry frowned “so you decided to rob him his innocence and indoctrinate him with your cynicism,” he said “Scorpius is a child, Malfoy. He doesn't need to know about grief and sorrow, let him be pure. Children are supposed to be hopeful.”

“Being aware of pessimistic circumstances does not taint a young heart, Potter. It makes them stronger than the ones who know nothing. Children are incredibly more resilient and compliant than we adults give them credits for. Now, they cry their heads off, then they'll silently tiptoe their way to maturity far sooner than we parents would like” said Malfoy. “What I’m doing is to build his conscience, or indoctrinate as you please, and I’d rather Scorpius would learn from my experience than to be influenced by the irrationality of the world.”

“Which idea of the mass is irrational?” asked Harry in puzzlement.

Malfoy smiled “you should’ve known this best. You’ve infamously graced the front cover of the Daily Prophet numerous times, after all. Don't you think that the only difference between a faithful mass and a herd of repugnant, stupid bulls is nakedness?”

Harry had never had a proper chat with Malfoy without one of them cursing and being hostile, but now the alpha wizard could see that Malfoy’s intelligence was not limited to only inventing profanities and hexes and derisive poetry. But that wasn't mean Harry would agree with him.

“I’d rather my children to learn on their own, molding them to what I deem as ideal seems too manipulative. That may sounds apathetic, but I believe that life is the best teacher*(1). They’ll eventually figure it out. They can do whatever and wander wherever they pleased, and as a parent I will only hope that they would grow up strong and independent” said Harry.

“What if your children would go stray, Potter?”

“Don't you think Scorpius is caged, Malfoy?”

Malfoy didn't answer this time. He continued to sip at his tea, his eyes seeked for a particular nothing in the window again.

“What do Milos think?” asked Harry, and was quite puzzled when he saw Malfoy’s already pale knuckles become as white as a ghost.

“Not his problem to concern. He never seems to be enthusiastic about parenting” said Malfoy. “What about, who was it, ah Ginevra. How is she? What would she think?”

It was Harry’s turn to adopt a sigh. “Nothing” he said curtly, and was too occupied with shutting down thoughts about Ginny, that he didn't even catch Malfoy using Ginny’s first name.

“Broke up?” said Malfoy, and Harry asked how the hell did he know. “Your soggy face. Rosita has the same one two days ago.”

“Oh,” said Harry “well, it’s none of your business.”

“Unlike you Potter, I do respect other's privacy.” If Malfoy was trying to make Harry feel guilty about their previous incident, he was getting a quite positive result.

“I’m sorry” said Harry “I shouldn’t have done it. You didn't show for a week, and I was really fretting it.”

“Why?” frowned Malfoy.

“Consider it instinct” said Harry, and he will so dearly regret that answer a month later from today.  

“Right, a concoction of Saviour complex and alpha overly protectiveness, a beautiful brew for your future family’s dismay” smirked Malfoy. “If you think drinking my tea and giving a cute apology would be suffice, it’s hardly close enough.”

“What do you want, Malfoy? I won't get you more Starbucks pastries, you'll become a fatso like your cat in no time” said Harry, and was startled when an angry hiss came from behind him. “Malfoy, is your cat waiting to attack me? Is he at my back?” Harry told himself that a brawny, intimidating alpha like him had no logical reason to be afraid of the troll-sized feline, but it would be clever to have precautions anyway.  

“I warned you” Malfoy's smile was nothing but sheer evil. “Come here, Squishy.”

The cat landed on Malfoy’s lap and Harry heard a sharp gasp from the blond at the contact. But he didn't dare to comment on it, since the slit in the narrow eyes of the animal had yet to leave him alone. He abandon the sight of the cat’s grumpy face, and instead watch Malfoy’s fingers that were as white and ethereal as fine bone china carding through the dark fur.

Being wary of the pet, Harry announced that it was time for him to leave, so Malfoy put the atrocious cat down and accompanied him to the door. But before Harry turned to leave, Malfoy called his name.

“Since you have done wonder for an apology, I also want to give you mine” said Malfoy, his voice was hard and determine, but somehow Harry could find a trace of vulnerability weaving through the blond’s deliberate drawl. “I’m sorry, for everything I've done you wrong. I’ve serve my sins, but I’ve never been able to apologize, and there's a luxury in self-reproach. It’s the confession, not the sentence, that gives us absolution*(2). And guilt does not make a very pretty bed companion, so I apologize, Potter.”

Harry was about to ask what the blond had done to resolve the sins that he was talking of, but stopped himself when he realized that Malfoy would not appreciate to have his past dug up and his passion of regret cast aside. He accepted both of Malfoy’s slightly sarcastic but honest apology, and told Malfoy to get stuffed when the blond wore an expression of absolute surprise on his face.

“It’s been ten years, Malfoy. I’m not petty. If you had come to me right after the war with only an apology and no redemption, I might've gave you a few hexes, but now we are both too old and feeble to hold a grudge. Besides, I think you’ve done the five years of good deeds splendidly” Harry nodded his head to indicate the little Malfoy’s bedroom.

Harry had thought that Malfoy’s nice, secretive smile when they were done setting the table at Rosita’s apartment was already enough for his list of ‘Thou Shalt Not Covet’ things, but that was because he had yet seen the other ones. Malfoy apparently looked quite a decent bloke when he smiled, Harry thought, and absolutely denied the synonym ‘pretty’ that first popped up in his head. ‘Pretty’ sounded too excessively innocent and soft for Malfoy. And just like his omega pheromone scent, it smelled too sweet and too gentle for Malfoy’s character. It was just completely absurd.

“Two hundred and ninety-five more years to go, then” chuckled Malfoy.

Harry told the blond that he needed to do better, and received a very amused ‘fuck you’.

“It’s not at my pleasure, but if you have time, you could come back here, Potter. Scorpius seems like he need someone who acts his age to be friends with” said Malfoy while smirking teasingly.

“Depends on whether or not your bloody cat will ambush me the next time I’m here” Harry said, he didn't even realize that he had just made a promise to return.

“Instead of criticising, Potter, try feeding him instead.”

“Yes, feed him so he can break my neck when he fancies a nap on my head.”

“That,” laughed Malfoy “is your problem, mop head.”

“Be quiet, albino git” Harry quipped and smirked.

“No, really, you should come back. Next week I’m going to be quite busy with customers, and Rosita is too depressed for children to be around so I think Scorpius and Jovanna will be delighted to play with you, although I do not know why, I think you're a very dull company” it was possible to shrug both lazily and gracefully, and Harry didn't how Malfoy could do so.

“If you want a free babysitter, don't insult him, Malfoy” Harry said.

The pale pillock just brighten. “Brilliant, we'll need you on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Just come whenever you’re off work, which judging by your prolonged wandering about in the lunch area it probably isn't that difficult.”

“Oi, I taught my Aurors very thoroughly. Wait, mention of job, what do you do, Malfoy?”

“Potioneer, do business with crows’ delivery. The lab I rent is the in the same bloody hall with your classroom. If you haven't been so self-absorbed, you would've know. Now, be gone, Potter. I need to get to sleep to deal with Scorpius’ whining tomorrow when I tell him that Potter just ‘ _poofed!_ ’ away again. It’s your damn fault that he asks how you traveled back to home for an infinite number of times after the Banff trip, every damn five minutes” sighed Malfoy.

“Alright, alright. Night, Malfoy. _Poofing_ off here I go” said Harry, and laughed when Malfoy gave him the two-fingered salute.

On his way back to the hotel in Okotoks, Harry suddenly remembered Malfoy’s twisted, self-centered version of the Little Mermaid story and chuckled to himself. He had left his sacred list of forbidden things back with the blond, for he didn't dare to carry it in his head when he went to sleep. When he stepped into the lobby, Gino the Waiter was sitting at the reception counter with a radio singing a fervent rock song, so Harry asked him about the strange shaped guitars that he had seen in the office of a certain blond git.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, I do regret making this a slow burn when I have no patience whatsoever. Nah, life will get on and Harry and Draco will too. 
> 
> The Little Mermaid excerpt belongs to Hans Christian Andersen.
> 
> *(1) I swear to God I remember this quote is from 'Little Women' by Alcott May Louisa, or in the whole series. But I return to look for it and nope it's not there *cries*
> 
> *(2) The original of this quote is: "There is a luxury in self-reproach... It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution" by Oscar Wilde in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.
> 
> Rosita's Ultimate Cheeseburger is Jamie Oliver's and also Milos' quote of "There's no such thing as a polite burger!".


End file.
